JERHM: Plant and Soil Data for Mesquite Encroachment Restoration, 2023

2023 data from the Jornada Experimental Range Herbicide Mesquite Project (JERHM) characterizes plant community composition, litter, soil depth, and shrub interspace distances. Molly Reichenborn collected this data to measure ecosystem responses to Connectivity Modifiers and herbicide treatments on 16 paired, 5-hectare plots in New Mexico. There are no immediate plans to continue data collection.

Use Cases

• Modeling plant community recovery based on herbicide treatment and connectivity modifier application.
• Analyzing soil depth and litter accumulation as indicators of ecosystem resource response.
• Studying bare ground connectivity and aeolian processes in shrub interspaces.
• Comparing treated and untreated plots to assess the effectiveness of mesquite control strategies.

Strengths

• Data is structured around a controlled experiment with 16 paired, 5-hectare plots.
• Includes multiple ecosystem variables: plant composition, litter, soil depth, and fetch distance.
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data collection is from a single year (2023) with no planned continuation, limiting longitudinal analysis.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Molly Reichenborn.

Collection Method

Field data collected in fall 2023 as part of the JERHM experiment on installed ConMod and control arrays.

Time Range

2023

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 21:40:08; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Jornada Experimental Range, New Mexico, USA.