Pinon-Juniper (Core Site) Quadrat Data for the Net Primary Production Study at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico (2003-present )

Esteban Muldavin

This dataset was originally published on the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network Data Portal, https://portal.lternet.edu, and potentially via other repositories or portals as described. The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of the source data package is doi:10.6073/pasta/753e05f48b5816be0f6df68cd7c80baf, and may be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/753e05f48b5816be0f6df68cd7c80baf. Metadata and files included in this record mirror as closely as possible the source data and documentation, with the provenance metadata and quality report generated by the LTER portal reproduced here as '*-provenance.xml' and *-report.html' files, respectively.

Abstract

This dataset contains pinon-juniper woodland quadrat data and is part of a long-term study at the Sevilleta LTER measuring net primary production (NPP) across four distinct ecosystems: creosote-dominant shrubland (Site C, est. winter 1999), black grama-dominant grassland (Site G, est. winter 1999), blue grama-dominant grassland (Site B, est. winter 2002), and pinon-juniper woodland (Site P, est. winter 2003). Net primary production is a fundamental ecological variable that quantifies rates of carbon consumption and fixation. Estimates of NPP are important in understanding energy flow at a community level as well as spatial and temporal responses to a range of ecological processes. Above-ground net primary production is the change in plant biomass, represented by stems, flowers, fruit and and foliage, over time and incoporates growth as well as loss to death and decomposition. To measure this change the vegetation variables in this dataset, including species composition and the cover and height of individuals, are sampled twice yearly (spring and fall) at permanent 1m x 1m plots within each site. A third sampling at Site C is performed in the winter. The data from these plots is used to build regressions correlating biomass and volume via weights of select harvested species obtained in SEV157, "Net Primary Productivity (NPP) Weight Data." This biomass data is included in SEV182, "Seasonal Biomass and Seasonal and Annual NPP for Core Research Sites."