Vegetation traits of pre-Alpine grasslands in southern Germany

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 plot-level 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.