Vegetation and fuels characteristics of four sites in the southern Great Plains: Pyric herbivory study

This data publication includes vegetation community composition, structure, and fuels characteristics collected from four sites across the southern Great Plains (Oklahoma and Texas). This large-scale experiment was established to compare prescribed fire treatments without grazing to those where grazing is allowed to interact through pyric herbivory at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Packsaddle Wildlife Management Area, Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, and Attwater’s Prairie-Chicken National Wildlife Refuge. The study involved sampling fire-only treatment patches of various time since fire, and fire/grazing patches with various time since fire as available. Field data were obtained between June of 2014 and August of 2016. Data include mean and maximum height of herbaceous and woody vegetation; highest points at which live and dead/dormant vegetation touched a wooden pole within sample plots; and Daubenmire percent cover of grass, forbs, shrubs, leaf litter, bare ground, 1-hour and 10-hour fuels.
The primary objective of this research was to evaluate the potential for pyric herbivory to simultaneously benefit both fuels management and prairie-chicken conservation goals. These data were collected for comparison to known prairie-chicken habitat requirements.
For more information about this study and these data, see Elmore et al. (2017), Starns (2017), and Starns (2019).