Complete data and statistical code for: Seeding roadsides is necessary but not sufficient for restoring native floral communities

Abstract

These data were collected in support of a Minnesota Department of Transportation funded study evaluating roadside plantings. The goal of our study was understand how roadside pollinator forage is affected by planting pollinator-friendly seed mixes in roadsides in Minnesota, USA. We used a field study of mixed-age roadside plantings to assess this flower diversity in roadsides planted with status quo non-native seed mixes to those planted with pollinator friendly, native seed mixes. We found that while these native seed mixes did increase the abundance of native flowers, the roadsides' flower communities of native and non-native seedmixes converged through time to grass dominated and unplanted colonizing species. This repository contains the complete datasets as a comma-separated-value files and Program R code necessary to replicate the data prep, exploration, analysis, and visualizations presented in the manuscript.