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Desert grassland vegetation is a key resource upon which rangelands in the southwestern US are built, and managing these ecosystems remains a critical challenge today. This experimental fire seasonality research project, in collaboration with the USFWS, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, and the Sevilleta LTER, is intended to provide land management agencies with information about vegetation recovery following fire under different seasonal conditions and burning treatments. This experimental research will enable the FWS to more effectively set project objectives for prescribed burning on the Sevilleta NWR to benefit not only wildlife habitat, but to better align the timing and intensity of fire to benefit the reestablishment of the dominant native grama grasses Bouteloua eriopoda and B. gracilis. Since its creation in 1973, management has been devoted to restoring the Sevilleta NWR to the natural conditions that might have been seen around the turn of the century. The Sevilleta NWR is an ideal place for research because climatic conditions, plant species composition and net primary production following wildfire have been well documented by the Sevilleta LTER. Additional experimental research is needed, however, to better inform managers about the timing and use of fire as an ecosystem restoration and management tool. This is an on-going, long-term experiment under the auspices of the Sevilleta LTER program.
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Meteorology Data from the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico
These files contain hourly meteorological data that were collected from a network of permanent weather stations on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge as part of the Sevilleta Long Term Ecological Research Program.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1655499
- PAR ID:
- 10424087
- Publisher / Repository:
- Environmental Data Initiative
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Sevilleta Long-Term Ecological Research Program has monitored plant species cover, height, abundance (counts), and biomass since 1999. This list represents the plant species found at the Sevilleta, including those species featured in long-term datasets on plant abundance and biomass. Species codes have been updated to the most recent taxonomic designations by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (plants.sc.egov.usda.gov), and are listed by their kartez codes, or character and number symbols.more » « less
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This dataset contains measurements of morphological (leaf, stem, root, and seed), nutrient, and isotopic traits for plant species growing in the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge. Approximately 104 species were sampled in or near four core sites of the SEV-LTER (core_blue, core_black, core_creosote, and core_PJ) plus the Sevilleta Field Station between 2017 and 2021. In addition, seed masses were measured from a 2016-era seed collection provided by Jenny Noble and added to the dataset; for these, site = NA.more » « less
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{"Abstract":["This dataset includes field-collected spectral reflectance of\n dominant vegetation species in grassland and shrubland at the\n Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge collected monthly May \u2013 September\n 2019. A spectroradiometer was used to collect the percent spectral\n reflectance of electromagnetic radiation (range 400-2500nm) of a\n sample of dominant vegetation species ("spectra"),\n yielding a spectral curve for each species. At least ten individuals\n per species were sampled. These data form a spectral library which\n was used to calibrate a multiple-endmember spectral mixture analysis\n (MESMA) of satellite imagery of the Sevilleta NWR, as part of an\n ongoing collaboration between the LTER and the Center for the\n Advancement of Spatial Informatics Research and Education (ASPIRE).\n Ultimately, we aim to produce fractional images of green vegetation,\n non-photosynthetic vegetation, bare soil, and shade to form a\n synoptic thirty-year record of vegetation dynamics at the Refuge.\n The spectral library can be referenced by future researchers using\n remote sensing methods to examine vegetation dynamics at the\n Sevilleta NWR."]}more » « less
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Concern about pollinator populations is widespread, with bees documented to be in decline due to factors including habitat loss, disease, and pesticides. In addition, climate change may be an important cause of bee population losses, but few studies have examined bee abundance relationships with climate variables. Importantly, bees may respond directly to climate or may exhibit indirect responses to climate via changes in plant phenology or community composition. This study collected floral trait data to complement the Sevilleta LTER pollinator monitoring, plant phenology, and plant biomass datasets, with the aim of examining whether floral resource availability mediates bee responses to climate. For 71 common, animal-pollinated flowering plant species, we measured floral traits relevant to pollination in June–October 2018 and April–August 2019 within sites representing four ecosystem types at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge: Plains grassland, Chihuahuan Desert grassland, Chihuahuan Desert shrubland, and piñon-juniper woodland. On a minimum of 5 individuals per plant species, we recorded the total number of open flowers and the corolla width of flowers, along with plant height and vegetative cover. These data may be used in combination with the Sevilleta LTER pollinator monitoring, phenology, and biomass datasets to examine how bee and floral resource abundance, diversity, and phenology vary across years and whether these changes correspond with one another, as well as to consider relationships among climate, floral resource abundance/diversity, and bee abundance/diversity.more » « less
