Data and code from: Global change affects large herbivore forage biomass through gradual successional shifts and abrupt disturbances

Forage availability is a key factor regulating large herbivore populations. Global changes in land use and climate may affect the spatiotemporal distribution of forage across the ranges of large herbivores, especially in mountain ecosystems. We test two synergistic hypotheses for how landscape and climate changes from 2001 to 2023 have affected forb and graminoid biomass at the peak of the growing season within and across ecoregions of the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada. The successional change hypothesis posits that the encroachment of woody vegetation into previously herbaceous communities has reduced forage biomass. The disturbance hypothesis proposes that abrupt community shifts caused by fire and timber harvesting have increased forage biomass. We used remote sensing to quantify temporal changes in land cover and disturbances, NDVI greenness and phenology indices, and spring climate. We then used in-situ vegetation data to parameterize generalized linear a..., , , # Data and code from: Global change affects large herbivore forage biomass through gradual successional shifts and abrupt disturbances

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.mw6m9066p](10.5061/dryad.mw6m9066p)

## Description of the data and file structure

This repository contains R code and data files for \"Global change affects large herbivore forage biomass through gradual successional shifts and abrupt disturbances\". An overview of the data collection & analysis is available in the main manuscript. 

### Files and variables

#### File: Biomass_Plot_Data.zip

**Description:** Raw data from the forage biomass plots in .csv form 

#### File: code.zip

**Description:** R code for all analysis: 

1. integrating_fire_and_cutblocks_to_landcover_mar162024.RMD is the file that merges our fire polygons from Parks Canada and Alberta into our time-varying landcover raster based on burn year and type of landcover inside the burn. 
2. spatial_covariate_extraction_jan132025.RMD extracts all spatial variable...,