This dataset lists plant species vouchered for identification from Rangeland sites across Australia by the TERN Surveillance Monitoring team, using standardised AusPlots methodologies. <br /> Plant specimens are methodologically collected at each site as part of the AusPlots Vegetation vouchering method. Recorded information includes the site, date of collection and a voucher barcode. The specimen data is updated with the identification date and authority details when species identification is confirmed by the Herbaria. <br /> Plant population and community, soil, basal area and structural information are also assessed at each site. See AusPlots Vegetation vouchering and Rangelands Vocabularies for a list of parameters collected. </br>

We selected nine study sites, each incorporating three vegetation states: (a) fallow cropland, representing the restoration starting point, (b) planted old field (actively restored site), and (c) reference York gum (E. loxophleba) woodland. Plant species richness and cover All annual and perennial plant species were recorded in spring 2017 within each plot and identified to genus and species level where possible. Nomenclatures follow the Western Australian Herbarium (2017). A point intercept method previously demonstrated to provide objective and repeatable measures of cover (Godínez-Alvarez, Herrick, Mattocks, Toledo & Van Zee 2009; Prober, Standish & Wiehl 2011) was used to quantify cover of individual plant species, total vegetation cover and substrate types (i.e., bare ground, litter cover, plant cover). Ground cover, individual species, and canopy cover intercepting at every 2 m along four parallel, evenly spaced 50 m transects across each plot were recorded using a vertically placed dowel (8 mm wide, 2 m tall), resulting in 100 intercepting points per plot. For planted old fields, transects were placed parallel to planting rows, with two centred on rows and two centred between rows. This approximately represented the relative abundance of planted rows and non-planted inter-rows. If a species was recorded in the plot but did not intercept the dowel on any transect it was assigned 0.5 points. This method provided a measure of relative abundance (percentage cover) of plant species across the plot. To calculate species richness and cover across different life history and growth forms, species were classified into the following groups: total, native trees, native shrubs, native non – planted shrubs, native grasses, native perennial forbs, native annual forbs, exotic grasses and exotic annual forbs using the Western Australian Herbarium (2017) classification. Woody debris and leaf litter surveys Leaf-litter dry mass was estimated by collecting leaf-litter from five randomly placed 25 cm x 25 cm quadrats along two 50 m transects across each plot. Litter was stored in paper bags for transportation and then oven dried for 36 hours at 60 °C. The dried litter was weighed to 3 decimal points. Cover of fine and coarse woody debris and litter depth was estimated at every meter along two 20 m transects for each plot. Woody debris was classified by diameter. Length, max and min diameter was measured for all logs with a diameter greater than 10 cm.

The dataset can be reused for contintental-wide synthesis of the cover of Australian grasses. It consists of high quality, well-described plot-based data extracted from TERN repository on 13/3/2014. The data includes vegetation records for the Poaceae family from the following dataset: ABARES Ground Cover Reference Sites Database, Biological Survey of South Australia - Vegetation Survey, Biological Database of South Australia, Corveg (Queensland), TERN AusPlots Rangelands Survey Program, Biological Survey of the Ravensthorpe Range (Western Australia).The entire content of the portal was initially extracted using the portal's download feature to obtain the full extent of available data for the following all datasets. These data were loaded into a PostgreSQL database. Subsequently, a SQL query was built for each of the cited datasets which produced a flat table containing information about the survey name, site identifier, visit date, coordinates, species, abundance, biomass and/or cover class, filtering on species of the Poaceae family using a genus list obtained from the website of the Atlas of Living Australia (http://www.ala.org.au/).

The dataset contains passive activity index data used to monitor the distribution and activity of introduced carnivores in the habitat of endangered species within Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.

In 2013 the scope of the Island-wide Survey was expanded to gather data at each survey site about scale insect assemblages. This involves a vegetation survey of twelve key tree species that play a role in YCA-scale insect mutualism. These tree species are an effective proxy for the scale species present in an area. The dataset contains vegetation transect survey data on the target twelve key tree species that play a role in YCA-scale insect mutualism, collected during the Island-wide Survey.