Kelly Kindscher

This project was conducted in western Kansas between 1993 and 1995 on playa lake wetlands. These are isolated upland depressional basins that occasionally have standing water. More information on these wetlands is at the Playa Lake Joint Venture website. This project was established to look at both rangeland and cropped playa lakes, the complete report is linked as a PDF below.

The data demonstrate significant differences among the different wetlands sites, with those that are in rangeland and have never been farmed having more wetland obligate species and cover, especially more Eleocharis species.

Location data
The sampling of playa lakes wetlands was established by setting 1-meter-square plots along a long transect, with plots 4 meters apart. These transects were carefully mapped on 1:24,000 topographic maps.

The latitude/longitude designations in the data file were determined by mapping these playas again and finding the locations in Google Earth. Latitude and longitude columns of the data are set in decimal degrees and using mapping projection NAD 27. The first and last plot of each transect are given with latitude and longitude readings. The other plots are located between them, and the accuracy is estimated to be plus or minus 25 m.

Study data
The data file linked below contains the location data, the transect of the named playa (in the next column), which of the three years the data was collected, columns for each of the species. The species names conform to the Flora of the Great Plains.

Playa Lakes Fall 1993 and 1995 data [Excel file]

Reference
Kindscher, K., S. Wilson, A. Fraser, and C. Lauver. 1996. “Vegetation Analysis of Western Kansas Playa Lakes—1993–1995. [View PDF]

You are welcome to use this data, and I ask that you credit the source. Please contact me, as I am especially interested in opportunities to collaborate on uses of this data.