Data and R source code for "Fire severity and changing composition of forest understory plant communities"

This data publication includes all data and R source code for "Fire severity and changing composition of forest understory plant communities" by Stevens et al. (2019). The data capture pre-fire (1996-1997) and post-fire (2003-2012) vascular understory plant community composition for 20 0.1-hectare (ha) plots in a 400-ha dry conifer forest site that burned with a range of fire severities in the 2002 Hayman Fire, Colorado, USA. The data also capture plot environmental characteristics and characteristics of the plant taxa in the communities. The R source code uses the data to examine how gradients of fire severity affected the presence of cool-mesic and warm-xeric taxa over the study period, defined here according to taxa biogeographic affinity of paleobotanical lineages.
Gradients of fire severity in dry conifer forests can be associated with variation in understory plant composition. Recent work in California, USA, dry conifer forests has suggested that more severely burned stands contain more thermophilic taxa (those associated with warm-xeric as opposed to cool-mesic conditions, based on biogeographic affinity of paleobotanical lineages), and that forest disturbance may therefore accelerate floristic shifts already underway due to climate change. However, it remains unknown how rapidly thermophilic taxa shifts occur following fire, how long such shifts are likely to persist, and how different post-fire communities are from pre-fire communities. These data and source code files were used to address these uncertainties.
These data were originally published on 08/05/2019. On 11/18/2021 the metadata was updated to include complete citation information for article related to these data.