The purpose of this study is to monitor long-term changes in individual animal mass. The datasets include an annual summary of the bison herd structure, end-of-season weights of individual animals, and maternal parentage of individual bison.
Belowground densities and biomass of macroarthropods on annually were measured by hand-sorting techniques. Total herbivore biomass was greater in soils of annually burned sites, and was composed largely of white grubs (Scarabaeidae).
‘PBG’ datasets are associated with a long-term, large-scale study that is addressing the effects of fire-grazing interactions in the context of a Patch-Burn Grazing management system designed to promote grassland heterogeneity. Effects of patch-burn grazing management on plant and animal diversity and the nature and variety of wildlife habitat are being assessed in two replicate management units, each consisting of three pastures (watersheds) designated C03A/C03B/C03C and C3SA/C3SB/C3SC.
The goals and focal research questions are copied below from the Nutrient Network website. More information can be found at nutnet.org.
NutNet focal research questions: (1) How general is our current understanding of productivity-diversity relationships? (2) To what extent are plant production and diversity co-limited by multiple nutrients in herbacoues-dominated communities? (3) Under what conditions do grazers or fertilization control plant biomass, diversity, and composition?
Recent models suggest that herbivores optimize nutrient intake by selecting patches of low to intermediate vegetation biomass. We assessed the application of this hypothesis to plains bison (Bison bison) in an experimental grassland managed with fire by estimating daily rates of nutrient intake in relation to grass biomass and by measuring patch selection in experimental watersheds in which grass biomass was manipulated by prescribed burning.
