DOI: 10.5061/dryad.j9kd51cd7
title: Tallgrass prairie plant communities across twenty years of restoration

description: Ecosystem restoration projects need to measure progress toward project
 goals and deliver desired outcomes. This study examines longitudinal plant
 community data collected from permanent transects at the Nachusa
 Grasslands preserve in northern Illinois, USA. Managers established
 permanent transects for repeated plant community monitoring beginning in
 the mid-1990s. Native plant communities, including rare species, have
 persisted, or improved with management over two decades. Planted prairies
 have lower proportions of native species than native prairies but have
 generally maintained native-dominated communities and in some cases,
 increased presence of native species. Savannas have shown a distinct
 transition from shrub-dense communities to herbaceous understories
 dominated with native species. Restoration efforts at Nachusa Grasslands
 have been successful at sustaining unique native plant communities through
 management practices like prescribed fire, brush removal, and aggressive
 invasive species control. As a disturbance dependent ecosystem that has
 developed with human management over millennia, tallgrass prairie and
 savanna can thrive through restoration and active management.
description: Data was collected at The Nature Conservancy's Nachusa
 Grasslands (Franklin Grove, IL, USA). Between 1994 and 1996, managers
 set-up transects in 12 independent sites within the preserve to evaluate
 and monitor plant community changes in both native and restored prairie
 units across the preserve (see Bach & Kleiman 2021 for map and
 additional information). Sites were replicated within three habitat types:
 native prairie (n=4), restored planted prairie (n=4), and savanna (n=4).
 Transects in native prairie each included 15 quadrats
 (1m<sup>2</sup>) and transects in restored and savanna habitat
 each included 10 quadrats. All quadrats were spaced approximately 1 m
 apart on alternating sides of the transect tape. In 1994, we believe
 0.5m<sup>2</sup> quadrats were used instead of
 1m<sup>2</sup>, although no documentation could verify one way
 or the other. Given that adjusting the number of species to a per meter
 basis does not reflect the true species richness at
 1m<sup>2</sup>, we opted to keep the
 0.5m<sup>2</sup> data in the seven instances that it occurs.
 In all quadrats, plants were identified to species level. The transects
 were permanently marked and resampled over time. Due to differences in
 cover metrics used over the years, Bach & Kleiman (2021) consider
 species presence/absence only. Original field data was digitized and
 coalesced into this format. Plant species nomenclature, coefficient of
 conservatism, and native status were updated to match Wilhelm &
 Rericha 2017 <i>Flora of the Chicago Region</i>.
 This data file includes the original cover values, analytical
 code reduces it to presence/absence for analyses used in the publication.
 Transects sampled fewer than three times between 1994 and 2016 were not
 included in the published analyses and are removed in the analytical code.
 Summarized data is also available at www.universalfqa.org at the transect
 level. Statistical code for analyses published in Bach & Kleiman
 (2021) is available at
 https://github.com/ebach/Nachusa_plants2021.
description: File name: Nachusa_veg_transcet_data1994_2016.csv
 File author: Elizabeth M. Bach Contact email:
 elizabeth.bach@tnc.org Associated publication: Bach, E.M. and Kleiman, B.P. 2021. Twenty years of tallgrass prairie restoration in northern Illinois, USA. <i>Ecological Solutions and Evidence</i>   Column descriptions: Scientific_name: Genus species, nomenclature was updated to match Wilhelm & Rericha 2017 <i>Flora of the Chicago Region</i> Sample_Day: day of the month data was collected, if known. Unknown values=NA Sample_Month: month of the year data was collected Sample_Year: year data was collected Data_Collector: First initial and last name of person who collected field data. In cases with more than 1 person, names separated by “,” Transect: transect ID number, see Table 1 in Bach & Kleiman for additional details Unit: Unit name within Nachusa Grasslands where transect is located. This is helpful for internal purposes at Nachusa Grasslands, but was not used in the publication. Quadrat: number of the quadrat within the transect from which data was collected Quadrat_size_m: size of the quadrat in m<sup>2</sup>, in some cases this information was not recorded by the original data collector and EM Bach made the best educated presumption based on number of species and comparison with data known to come from 1m<sup>2</sup>. Cover_metric: method used to estimate cover, options include: “presence_absence”, “daubenmire”, and “percent”. Daubenmire is a standard cover class approach with values 1-6 corresponding to range of cover value. “Percent” refers to an exact estimation of percent cover. Cover_value: cover value originally assigned to each species at each sampling time C.1994: Coefficient of conservatism for the species published in Swink & Wilhelm 1994. <i>Flora of the Chicago Region</i>. Some species present in this dataset were not listed in the 1994 <i>Flora</i> and are indicated with “NA.” Some plants were not identified to species level, so C value is “NA”. These C values were originally assigned when the data was collected. Values range 0-10. C.2016: Coefficient of conservatism for the species published in Wilhelm & Rericha 2016. <i>Flora of the Chicago Region</i>. Values range 0-10. Some plants were not identified to species level, so C value is “NA”. Native.2016: signifies if the plant species is native or not native to the Chicago region based on Wilhelm & Rericha 2016 <i>Flora of the Chicago Region</i>. Options are “native” and “not-native”. Some plants were not identified to species level, so native value is “NA”. Duration.2016: growth duration of the plant species based on Wilhelm & Rericha 2016 <i>Flora of the Chicago Region</i>. Options are “annual”, “biennial”, “perennial”. Some plants were not identified to species level, so duration value is “NA”. Physiognomy.2016: Plant species physiognomy based on Wilhelm & Rericha 2016 <i>Flora of the Chicago Region</i>. Options include: “fern”, “forb”, “grass”, “sedge”, “shrub”, “tree”, “vine”. Some plants were not identified to species level, so physiognomy value is “NA”.   Columns contain no unknown values except as indicated.