Data from: Plant community-specific greening patterns predict population size increases in a temperate herbivore ...

• Main Authors: Pakeman, Robin, Stevenson, Ian, Pilkington, Jill, Bal, Xavier, Pemberton, Josephine, Fenton, Andy, Childs, Dylan, Crawley, Mick, Nussey, Dan
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2024
• Subjects: herbivore; Population dynamics; greening; Normalised difference vegetation index; Ovis aries; Plant functional traits; FOS: Biological sciences; Arctic; Climate change; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ttdz08m72; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.ttdz08m72

Climate change driven impacts on vegetation productivity have been shown to drive mammalian herbivore population dynamics in arctic and alpine environments. However, there is less evidence for temperate systems. To address this, we examined the contribution of increasing plant biomass in different vegetation communities (measured by NDVI, normalised difference vegetation index) and winter weather on the observed long-term upward trend in the population of the Soay sheep of Hirta, St Kilda, UK. We found that biomass had increased in all vegetation communities present and done so increased fastest in vegetation types preferred by the sheep. Specifically, those communities with high Specific Leaf Area and Ellenberg’s N, low Leaf Dry Matter Content. Peak summer NDVI and either winter average wind speed or winter North Atlantic Oscillation data added to the variance explained by a simple density dependence model of yearly sheep population growth rates. The highest explanatory power was found for preferred ... : Please see the paper for details. The work described combined whole population census data, meteorological data, and Landsat NDVI data for different vegetation types. ...