A national-scale dataset of arable plant abundance from citizen science surveys of swedish field margins

Abstract

We present here a first-of-its-kind survey of field margin flora in Sweden. The survey was carried out in summer 2020-2023, covering most of Sweden's major agricultural regions. Volunteer botanists surveyed a 100 & times; 1 m transect at the edge of the crop, estimating abundances of all non-crop plants growing there. We later cleaned the data by crossreferencing surveyor comments and reports with data on management and soil, and filtered it to only include herbaceous plants growing in the field at the height of the growing season, before harvest. In total, 7364 observations from 442 species found in 294 sites, ranging from Skane in the south to Vasterbotten in the north, were retained in the data. These data offer a unique insight into the present state of Swedish field margin plant communities, from a fine to a large scale. They are useful for community studies, and can aid in mak ing informed decisions on management and conservation of plants growing on, or near, agricultural land. (c) 2026 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Keywords

Biodiversity; Agriculture; Agricultural weed; Plant conservation; Plant community

Published in

Data in Brief
2026, volume: 65, article number: 112602
Publisher: ELSEVIER

SLU Authors

• Örnberg, Rebecca

  • Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Uppsala University

• Menegat, Alexander

  • Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Hickman, Darwin

  • Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Auffret, Alistair

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Nilsson, Johan

  • SLU Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Nyborg, Gunnar

  • SLU Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University administration, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Wikberg, Sofie

  • SLU Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Sundberg, Sebastian

  • SLU Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences and Nature Conservation

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2026.112602

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/146469