Relative effects of seed mix design, consumer pressure, and edge proximity on community structure in restored prairies
Data files
Nov 26, 2024 version files 95.08 KB
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CLE_Exclosures_meta.csv
2.38 KB
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CLE.2015-2021.csv
91.59 KB
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README.md
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Abstract
A central goal of ecosystem restoration is to promote diverse, native-dominated plant communities. However, restoration outcomes can be highly variable. One cause of this variation may be the decisions made during the seed mix design process, such as choosing the number of species to include (sown diversity), or the number of locations each species should be sourced from (source diversity, manipulated to affect genetic diversity). The effects that seed mixes have on plant communities may be further modified by other factors at the restoration site, including edge proximity and consumer pressure, which are also likely to vary over time. However, few studies have evaluated these seed mix attributes together, and none have done so under realistic field conditions. To address this research need, we conducted a prairie restoration experiment where two aspects of a seed mix (sown diversity and source diversity), edge proximity, and vertebrate consumer access were manipulated across 12 replicate fields. We found that when seed mix design impacted plant community structure, these effects were dependent on consumer access or edge proximity and were more prominent after one vs. five growing seasons. Low seed source diversity plots had more sown species than high source diversity ones, but only when consumers had access. Similarly, low species diversity plots had higher richness and cover of species included in both the low and high species diversity mixes, but this effect weakened over time. Additionally, plots with high species-diversity were buffered from the typically detrimental effects of edges and consumers, although this did not always result in greater sown species abundance. Unexpectedly, plots with the most sown species were those sown with either low source diversity or low species diversity seed mixes, perhaps due to lower seeding rates of reliably establishing species. Our results illustrate how the influences of seed mix design on restored plant communities can be highly contingent on factors like edges, consumers, and time.
https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0vt4b8h71
This includes all the data and R code responsible for producing the above manuscript in Ecological Applications. We broadly find that increasing the number of seed sources did not impact the assembled plant communities, but did have species-specific effects.
Description of the data and file structure
There are two CSV files attached:
“CLE.2015-2021.csv” which includes all the data used to produce this manuscrip
- We only have canopy cover (“Avg.open.sky” in dataframe) and water holding capacity (“whc”) for data collected in 2021–so 2016 data have “NA” values
“CLE_Exclosures_meta.csv” which includes descriptions of all the column names in “CLE.2015-2021.csv”
Sharing/Access information
NA
Code/Software
“CLE.analyses.R” which includes all the code used to produce the analyses and figures presented in the mansucript. All packages required are listed at the top of the document.
Data for this manuscript was collected in 2015 and 2021 from a long-term prairie experiment at Kellogg Biological Station where two aspects of a seed mix (sown diversity and source diversity), edge proximity, and vertebrate consumer access were manipulated across 12 replicate fields. Data was analyzed with R studio using provided code.