Vegetation traits of pre-Alpine grasslands in southern Germany

Kurzfassung

The data set contains information on aboveground vegetation traits of > 100 georeferenced locations  within ten temperate pre-alpine grassland plots in southern Germany. the grasslands were sampled in April 2018 for the following traits: bulk canopy height; weight of fresh and dry biomass; dry weight percentage of the plant functional types (PFt) non-green vegetation, legumes, non-leguminous forbs, and graminoids; total green area index (GAI) and PFT-specific GAI; plant water content; plant carbon  and nitrogen content (community values and PFT-specific values); as well as leaf mass per area (LMA) of PFT. In addition, a species specific inventory of the plots was conducted in June 2020 and provides plotlevel information on grassland type and plant species composition. the data set was obtained within the framework of the SUSALPS project ('Sustainable use of alpine and pre-alpine grassland soils in a changing climate'; https://www.susalps.de/) to provide in-situ data for the calibration and validation of remote sensing based models to estimate grassland traits.