Conversion of CRP Grasslands to Cropland, Grazing Lands, or Hayland: Effects on Breeding Bird Abundances in the Northern Great Plains, 1996-2017, data release

The data set consists of bird abundance data collected in undisturbed grassland fields enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and former CRP fields that were converted to cropland, grazing land, or hayland in nine counties in four states (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota) in the northern Great Plains. The study was initiated in 1990, but data were only included in this dataset for the 18 years in which all three of the post-CRP management practices occurred, i.e., 1996–2003 and 2008–2017. The data were summarized and used in the analysis for a peer-reviewed publication entitled: "Conversion of CRP Grasslands to Cropland, Grazing Lands, or Hayland: Effects on Breeding Bird Abundances." The data consist of one data set that includes county, state, field identification, year, management treatment (idle CRP, post-CRP cropland, post-CRP grazing land, and post-CRP hayland), field area (in hectares), and bird abundance (number of indicated breeding pairs) by species (listed by four-letter alpha codes for the 24 focal bird species observed during the study).