Vegetation structure and composition in the Wassuk Range, Sweetwater Mountains, and east slope of the Sierra Nevada, Nevada and California: 1st edition

These data document vegetation structure and composition in canyons throughout three mountain ranges in the western Great Basin (Mineral, Douglas, and Lyon Counties, Nevada and Mono County, California): the Wassuk Range, Sweetwater Mountains, and east slope of the Sierra Nevada. Vegetation data were collected in 2012, 2013, and 2014 at 158 locations where breeding birds were surveyed annually from 2012 through 2014 or 2015. Data include but are not limited to estimates of cover of trees (live and dead, differentiated by species), shrubs (differentiated by species), native herbaceous plants (generally not differentiated by species), and cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum); and sizes or size classes of trees (live and dead). With the exception of cheatgrass, which was measured each year at most locations, vegetation at each location was measured once, in either 2012 or 2013.
Data were collected to examine relations between probabilities of detection and occupancy of breeding birds and vegetation covariates. Data also will be used to train and validate models of vegetation (e.g., presence of riparian vegetation, hard and soft edges between trees and shrubs, potential changes in distribution of dominant species) that were based on remotely sensed data.
These data serve as environmental covariates for Fleishman 2015 (https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2015-0031). Vegetation data were collected at all locations where birds were sampled. Spatial data attributes in the breeding-bird data publication and this data publication (range, canyon, year, UTMx, UTMy) are the same and can be linked in a relational database or lookup table. Although the data primarily were collected to characterize bird habitat, they also could serve as environmental covariates for Fleishman 2015 (https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2015-0030). This first edition of the data became available on 09/08/2015. Minor metadata updates were made on 12/15/2016. **NOTE: In 2019 a second edition of these data became available (Fleishman 2019, https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2015-0032-2). We recommend use of this newest edition which has added additional years of data and other metadata improvements.