Plant cover data collected on roadsides treated with herbicide and bioherbicide in SW Idaho

The exotic grass-fire cycle is degrading semiarid rangelands, such as the vast areas of shrub-steppe in North America now invaded by fire-promoting cheatgrass. Chemical- or bio-herbicides are sprayed onto soils to inhibit the invaders, but information on chemical- or bio-herbicide effects on plant communities is limited. We asked how the plant community responded to the bioherbicide Pseudomonas fluorescens strain ACK55 (Battalion Pro®) in comparison to the separate and combined effects of the most conventional pre-emergent chemical herbicide, imazapic (Plateau®), in two cheatgrass-invaded sagebrush-steppe sites. Plant community responses are compared with soil microbial community responses in the Larger Work, and soil microbial data are available in GenBank. Plant community responses are compared with soil microbial community responses in the Larger Work, and soil microbial sequence data were deposited to the NCBI Short Read Archive (BioProject PRJNA1254875).