Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.8931zcs4r

Description of the data and file structure

This is a database about global grassland restoration. Including but not limited to grassland restoration methods, restoration time, and restoration location. A typical evaluation of ecological restoration metrics in published field studies included some biodiversity indicators and ecosystem multifunctionality indicators, such as biodiversity, productivity, and soil nutrients. Thus, we extracted 20 variables and then grouped them into two categories (8 biodiversity indicators, 13 ecosystem multifunctionality indicators and 3 environmental indicators) from the papers to test for recovery levels in grasslands. Our data included 8 broad taxonomic groups reflecting biodiversity, including mammals, birds, herpetofauna, invertebrates, insects, plants, bacteria and fungi. The papers within the database employed a diverse range of indices for representing biodiversity. These indices included species richness, as well as indices such as the Margalef index, Pielou index, Shannon-Wiener diversity index, and Simpson diversity index. Considering the variations in the choice and quantity of diversity indices presented by different journal articles, we utilized the weighted mean of all biodiversity metrics to evaluate the comprehensive impact. These ecological metrics were classified as ecosystem multifunctionality indicators, including the area covered by vegetation (cover), vegetation height above ground (height), the amount of leaf litter on the substrate (litter), aboveground biomass (AGB), belowground biomass (BGB), soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), microbial biomass carbon (MBC), microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN), and microbial biomass phosphorus (MBP). Because the overall multifunctionality of the ecosystems combined with multiple indices could reflect the changes in the ecosystems more comprehensively than a single index, we used the weighted equalization method for the calculation. The environmental factors included the soil pH (pH), bulk density (BD) and soil moisture (SM). Moreover, we also gathered and documented data on the grassland restoration methods (Action), grassland biome types (Biome), restoration duration (Duration), longitude (Lon), latitude (Lat), elevation (ELE), mean annual precipitation (MAP), mean annual temperature (MAT) and proportion of clay in soils (Clay). To ensure suitable baselines for examination of restoration time sequences, restoration duration was defined as the time from the start of recovery of degraded grassland to the end or the duration of ongoing grassland recovery. Based on the new IUCN global ecosystem typology, the dataset encompassed three biome groups to quantify the recovery effectiveness in grasslands: savannas and grasslands biomes, deserts and semi-deserts biomes, and polar and alpine biomes. The savanna and grassland biomes rank among the largest biological communities globally. The deserts and semi-deserts biomes consist of ecosystems with low to extremely low biomass, existing in arid or semi-arid climates. The polar and alpine biomes cover the vast Arctic and Antarctic regions, along with high mountainous areas across all continents. In the end, our database contained 3214 observations.

Files and variables

File: source_data_deg.csv

Description: 

Variables

• id: number

• Reference: Paper Title

• study: number of paper 

• Date.of.publication: publication date

• Start.time: Experimental start time

• End.time: Experimental end time

• Longitude: Longitude

• Latitude: Latitude

• MAT: mean annual temperature

• MAP: mean annual precipitation

• ALT: altitude

• class: Ecosystem classification

• country: country

• continent: continent

• action: Grouping of Passive Recovery and Active Recovery

• Restoration.action: Restoration action

• recovery.time: recovery time

• ecofunction: The effect value of ecosystem multifunctionality

• ecofunction_var: Variance of ecosystem multifunctionality

• biodiversity: The effect value of biodiversity

• biodiversity_var: Variance of biodiversity

• NA: blank value