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

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 × 1 m transect at the edge of the crop, estimating abundances of all non-crop plants growing there. We later cleaned the data by cross-referencing 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 Skåne in the south to Västerbotten 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 making informed decisions on management and conservation of plants growing on, or near, agricultural land.