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Plant phenology or life-history patterns change seasonally as plants grow, mature, flower, and produce fruit and seed. Plant phenology follows seasonal patterns, yet variation may occur due to annual differences in the timing of rainfall and ambient temperature shifts. Foliage growth, flower, fruit, and seed production are important aspects of plant population dynamics and food resource availability for animals. The purpose of this study is to assess phenological patterns of plants across a series of biotic communities that represent an environmental moisture gradient. These communities all in the Chihuahuan Desert include: creosote bush shrubland, black grama grassland, and blue grama grassland. Plant phenology is recorded for all plant species across 4 replicate 200 m transects at each of the 3 habitat sites. Plant phenology measurements are taken once every month from February through October. The first ten individuals (or ten representative individuals) of each plant species encountered along each transect are assessed for life-history status. Data from the site P and J were only collected in 2000 and 2001 and are included in this data set.
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Long-Term Core Site Grasshopper Dynamics for the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico
Grasshoppers are important animals in semi-arid environments, both as herbivores and as food resources for higher level consumer animals. Grasshoppers tend to be numerous and speciose in semi-arid environments, especially desert grasslands, where they range from environmental specialists to environmental generalists. Grasshopper populations tend to change considerably from year to year, often in response to annual variation in rainfall and plant production. The purpose of this study was to monitor grasshopper species composition and abundance over large temporal and spatial dimentions which include black grama grassland, blue grama grassland, creosotebush shrubland, and pinyon/juniper woodland environments at the Sevilleta, in relation to seasonal and annual variation in precipitation and plant production. Data were collected for all individual species to provide information on community dynamics as well as population dynamics, starting in 1992 and continuing to the present. The working research hypothesis for this study was that grasshopper populations in all environments will correlate positively to seasonal and annual variation in precipitation and plant production. Spring grasshopper populations will be especially high during El Nino years, and late summer populations especially high during La Nina years.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1655499
- PAR ID:
- 10424133
- Publisher / Repository:
- Environmental Data Initiative
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Plant phenology or life-history patterns change seasonally as plants grow, mature, flower, and produce fruit and seed. Plant phenology follows seasonal patterns, yet variation may occur due to annual differences in the timing of rainfall and ambient temperature shifts. Foliage growth, flower, fruit, and seed production are important aspects of plant population dynamics and food resource availability for animals. The purpose of this study is to assess phenological patterns of plants across a series of biotic communities that represent an environmental moisture gradient. These communities all in the Chihuahuan Desert include: creosote bush shrubland, black grama grassland, and blue grama grassland. Plant phenology is recorded for all plant species across 4 replicate 200 m transects at each of the 3 habitat sites. Plant phenology measurements are taken once every month from February through October. The first ten individuals (or ten representative individuals) of each plant species encountered along each transect are assessed for life-history status. Data from the site P and J were only collected in 2000 and 2001 and are included in this data set.more » « less
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{"Abstract":["Humans are creating significant global environmental change,\n including shifts in climate, increased nitrogen (N) deposition, and\n the facilitation of species invasions. A multi-factorial field\n experiment is being performed in an arid grassland within the\n Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) to simulate increased\n nighttime temperature, higher N deposition, and heightened El Niño\n frequency (which increases winter precipitation by an average of\n 50%). The purpose of the experiment is to better understand the\n potential effects of environmental change on grassland community\n composition and the growth of introduced creosote seeds and\n seedlings. The focus is on the response of three dominant species,\n all of which are near their range margins and thus may be\n particularly susceptible to environmental change. It is hypothesized\n that warmer summer temperatures and increased evaporation will favor\n growth of black grama (Bouteloua eriopoda), a desert grass, but that\n increased winter precipitation and/or available nitrogen will favor\n the growth of blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), a shortgrass prairie\n species. Furthermore, it is thought that the growth and survival of\n introduced creosote (Larrea tridentata) seeds and seedlings will be\n promoted by heightened winter precipitation, N addition, and warmer\n nighttime temperatures. Treatment effects on limiting resources\n (soil moisture, nitrogen mineralization), species growth\n (photosynthetic rates, creosote shoot elongation), species\n abundance, and net primary production (NPP) are all being measured\n to determine the interactive effects of key global change drivers on\n arid grassland plant community dynamics. To measure above-ground NPP\n (i.e., the change in plant biomass, represented by stems, flowers,\n fruit and foliage, over time), the vegetation variables in this\n dataset, including species composition and the cover and height of\n individuals, are sampled twice yearly (spring and fall) at permanent\n 1m x 1m plots. The data from these plots is used to build\n regressions correlating biomass and volume via weights of select\n harvested species obtained in SEV157, "Net Primary Productivity\n (NPP) Weight Data." This biomass data is included in SEV205,\n "Warming-El Nino-Nitrogen Deposition Experiment (WENNDEx):\n Seasonal Biomass and Seasonal and Annual NPP.""]}more » « less
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Humans are creating significant global environmental change, including shifts in climate, increased nitrogen (N) deposition, and the facilitation of species invasions. A multi-factorial field experiment is being performed in an arid grassland within the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) to simulate increased nighttime temperature, higher N deposition, and heightened El Niño frequency (which increases winter precipitation by an average of 50%). The purpose of the experiment is to better understand the potential effects of environmental drivers on grassland community composition, aboveground net primary production and soil respiration. The focus is on the response of two dominant grasses (Bouteloua gracilis and B eriopoda), in an ecotone near their range margins and thus these species may be particularly susceptible to global environmental change. It is hypothesized that warmer summer temperatures and increased evaporation will favor growth of black grama (Bouteloua eriopoda), a desert grass, but that increased winter precipitation and/or available nitrogen will favor the growth of blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), a shortgrass prairie species. Treatment effects on limiting resources (soil moisture, nitrogen availability, species abundance, and net primary production (NPP) are all being measured to determine the interactive effects of key global change drivers on arid grassland plant community dynamics and ecosystem processes. On 4 August 2009 lightning ignited a ~3300 ha wildfire that burned through the experiment and its surroundings. Because desert grassland fires are patchy, not all of the replicate plots burned in the wildfire. Therefore, seven days after the wildfire was extinguished, the Sevilleta NWR Fire Crew thoroughly burned the remaining plots allowing us to assess experimentally the effects of interactions among multiple global change presses and a pulse disturbance on post-fire grassland dynamics. This data set provides soil N availability in each plot of the warming experiment for the monsoon season (also see SEV176).more » « less
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Humans are creating significant global environmental change, including shifts in climate, increased nitrogen (N) deposition, and the facilitation of species invasions. A multi-factorial field experiment is being performed in an arid grassland within the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) to simulate increased nighttime temperature, higher N deposition, and heightened El Nino frequency (which increases winter precipitation by an average of 50%). The purpose of the experiment is to better understand the potential effects of environmental drivers on grassland community composition, aboveground net primary production and soil respiration. The focus is on the response of two dominant grasses (Bouteloua gracilis and B eriopoda), in an ecotone near their range margins and thus these species may be particularly susceptible to global environmental change. It is hypothesized that warmer summer temperatures and increased evaporation will favor growth of black grama (Bouteloua eriopoda), a desert grass, but that increased winter precipitation and/or available nitrogen will favor the growth of blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), a shortgrass prairie species. Treatment effects on limiting resources (soil moisture, nitrogen availability, species abundance, and net primary production (NPP) are all being measured to determine the interactive effects of key global change drivers on arid grassland plant community dynamics and ecosystem processes. This dataset shows values of soil moisture, soil temperature, and the CO2 flux of the amount of CO2 that has moved from soil to air. On 4 August 2009 lightning ignited a ~3300 ha wildfire that burned through the experiment and its surroundings. Because desert grassland fires are patchy, not all of the replicate plots burned in the wildfire. Therefore, seven days after the wildfire was extinguished, the Sevilleta NWR Fire Crew thoroughly burned the remaining plots allowing us to assess experimentally the effects of interactions among multiple global change presses and a pulse disturbance on post-fire grassland dynamics.more » « less
