Santa rita experimental range digital database: User's guide

Long-term measurements and repeat photograph collections have been collected In a systematic manner on the approximately 21,000 ha Santa Rita Experimental Range (SRER) since Its establishment In 1903. This research facility, located In the Desert Grassland vegetation of southern Arizona, was administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture until 1988, when it was transferred to the State of Arizona to be administered by the University of Arizona, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. To facilitate the preservation of the long-term data collected on the SRER and to increase access to the data, we developed a digital archive that is accessible on the World Wide Web at http://ag.arizona.edu/SRER. The digital archive contains 10 databases, seven of which provide the longest records of ongoing measurements of precipitation, vegetation response to grazing and mesquite clearing experiments, and widespread photographic evidence of landscape changes available for the SRER. Two databases provide essential ancillary data about plant species names and spatial coverages (maps) of elevation, soils, plot locations, and other attributes. The final database is a digital version of a previously published annotated bibliography of SRER publications between 1903 and 1988. The information in these databases is available in five formats (ASCII text, Excel spreadsheet *.xls, ARCINFO *.e00, tagged image *.tif, and graphical interchange *.gif) that can be easily used in analytic, word processing, graphic, and geographic information system software.