DOI: 10.5061/dryad.h18931zs9
title: Data from: Different effects of fire age and fire recurrence on grass and woody plant chemistry in Kafue National Park, Zambia

description: In savannas, fire and herbivores are important drivers of natural
 ecosystem processes. Fire is also used intensively for management
 purposes. However, reported fire effects differ between studies. Reasons
 for these differences are still poorly understood. Here, we investigated
 the effects of fire on leaf chemistry of grasses and woody plants in the
 savanna of the Busanga Flood Plain, Zambia, in relation to the time
 elapsed between plant sampling and the last fire (fire age) and the
 frequency of fires during the last 16 years (fire recurrence). We analyzed
 leaves for their nitrogen, carbon and fiber concentrations, and estimated
 their metabolizable energy content, reflecting feed quality for browsers
 and grazers. Grasses and woody plants differed in all chemical components
 and showed different responses to fire. Grass quality was higher at sites
 burnt in the year of sample collection than at sites burnt only in
 previous years, but did not change under different fire recurrences.
 Leaves of woody plants did not differ in relation to fire age but their
 quality increased with increasing fire recurrence. In woody plants, the
 carbon content responded to the interaction between fire age and fire
 recurrence, indicating changes in carbon allocation in response to fire.
 Thus, burning increased feed quality for grazers and browsers but on
 different temporal scales. The scale effects may contribute to the
 differences in resource allocation described by different studies. They
 merit more attention in management decisions as well as in future studies
 on fire effects in savanna systems.
description: # Title of Dataset: Different effects of fire age and fire recurrence on
 grass and woody plant chemistry in Kafue National Park, Zambia ##
 Description of the Data and file structure: Table S1 Background
 information for plant samples from the Busanga Flood Plain, Kafue National
 Park, Zambia. Concentrations of chemical as % dry matter; Metabolizable
 Energy (Metab. Energy) in kcal/g dry matter. Dataset 1. Site: Sampling
 site assigned along the 60 km transect that was previously used for mammal
 trapping (Namukonde et al., 2017a,b; 2018; Namukonde & Simukonda,
 2018). 2. Coordinates: Location of each sampling site based on the
 latitude and longitude measured in degrees, minutes and seconds. 3.
 Sampling date: Dates at which leaf samples were collected from the
 sampling sites. 4. Habitats: Based on the dominant vegetation types of the
 Kafue National Park namely, grassland, Miombo Woodland and Termitaria. 5.
 Fire age: Time elapsed since the last fire. Categories for fire age were:
 fire that occurred during the year of plant collection (= recent burns)
 and fires experienced in years prior to plant collection (burns of
 previous years). Our classifications of fire age were verified by park
 staff and tour operators. 6. Fire recurrence: High or low fire recurrence
 areas. Areas of low fire recurrence experienced seven or fewer burns
 between 2000 and 2013. High fire recurrence areas experienced eight to
 fourteen fires during this period. 7. Species: Green leaves of dominant
 grasses and tree species from the sampling sites. 8. Growth form: Plant
 growth (tree of grass) form from which leaves were collected. 9. For all
 the leaves collected we considered the content of nitrogen (N), carbon
 (C), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), lignin,
 hemicellulose, ash and Metabolizable Energy (ME). All concentrations are
 expressed as percent dry matter save for ME that is expressed as kcal/g.
 10. Missing values are denoted by “-“ . Additional details are available
 in the article. ## Sharing/access Information: Public domain ## Data was
 derived from the following sources: Field Observations in the Kafue
 National Park, Zambia ## Code/Software None