Find research datasets worth reusing
Search datasets from major research repositories and use ShareScore to quickly assess how well each record supports discovery, access, and reuse.
72
datasets available to search
ShareScore release 0.9.0
Dataset results
72 results for “arid grasslands”
Data from: Higher plant diversity does not moderate the influence of changing rainfall regimes on plant-soil feedback of a semi-arid grassland
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Competition suppresses shrubs during early, but not late, stages of arid grassland-shrubland state transition
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Asymmetric responses of abundance and diversity of N-cycling genes to altered precipitation in arid grasslands
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Hydrothermal conditions determine soil potential net N mineralization rates in arid and semi-arid grasslands
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Shrub influence on soil carbon and nitrogen in a semi-arid grassland is mediated by precipitation and largely insensitive to livestock grazing
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Grassland type and seasonal effects have a bigger influence on plant functional and taxonomical diversity than prairie dog disturbances in semi-arid grasslands
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Effect of changing precipitation in different periods on precipitation use efficiency in a semi-arid grassland
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Livestock grazing regulates ecosystem multifunctionality in semi‐arid grassland
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Bottom-up effects of plant quantity and quality on arthropod diversity across multiple trophic levels in a semi-arid grassland
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Deepened snow cover mitigates soil carbon loss from intensive land use in a semi-arid temperate grassland
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Responses of soil temperature, moisture, and respiration to five-year warming and nitrogen addition in a semi-arid grassland
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Functional attributes of conifers expanding into temperate semi-arid grasslands modulate carbon and nitrogen fluxes in response to prescribed fire
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Does pH matter for ecosystem multifunctionality? An empirical test in a semi-arid grassland on the Loess Plateau
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Litter addition decreases plant diversity by suppressing seeding in a semi-arid grassland, Northern China
Plant community diversity is conducive to maintain the regional ecosystems stability and ecosystem services. Seed germination is one of the main ways to regulate plant diversity, owing to seedling recruitment as a basis for plant community renewal. However, the exact mechanism of how plant litter affects seedling recruitment and species richness is not yet fully understood. Therefore, a litter addition and removal experiment were established in a semiarid grassland to study the effects of plant litter on seedling recruitment and species richness from April to August in 2016 and 2017 in Northern China. The positive correlation between species richness and seedling recruitment indicated that a guarantee of seedling recruitment was the main precondition to protect species richness. Adding rather than removing litter significantly reduced species richness. Litter addition inhibited species richness by directly increasing mechanical damage or indirectly reducing photosynthetically active radiation and seedling recruitment. The results of this study are conducive to understand the evolutionary and regulatory mechanisms of community species richness and seedling recruitment in grassland ecosystems after adding or removing plant litter.
Data from: Changes in ecosystem carbon stocks following grazing exclusion in arid and semiarid grasslands
<ol> <li>Grazing exclusion (GE) is widely considered to be an important strategy for restoring overgrazed grasslands and promoting carbon (C) storage. However, the changes in the components of ecosystem C with GE and their related drivers remain largely unexplored.</li> <li>Here, we investigated the effects of GE on the ecosystem C components (plant and soil C) and their key driving factors through sampling inside and outside 15 grazing exclosures across the Inner Mongolia arid and semiarid grasslands in northern China.</li> <li>Our results showed that, except for dead root C, GE significantly promoted plant C stocks. The increase in AGB and litter C stocks resulted from the accumulation of both biomass and C concentration, while the increase in live root C stock was mainly attributed to biomass accumulation. In contrast, although the topsoil soil C concentration (0-20 cm) showed a marginal increase following GE, its bulk density greatly declined, which resulted in little change in the soil C stocks. Overall, GE had no significant effect on total ecosystem C stocks. Our results further indicated that across the grasslands, GE likely enhanced C accumulation in live roots in humid and fertile sites, while it caused losses of dead root C in relatively humid and fertile sites and increases in arid and infertile sites.</li> <li>We also found that the increases in AGB C, litter C and live root C stocks were driven by the direct effects of GE and its indirect effects mediated by soil water content. The marginal increases in soil C concentration with GE were linked to only high soil water contents. Meta-analysis further revealed that across the grasslands of China, the responses of ecosystem C components to GE were associated with changes in soil water conditions, suggesting the generality of soil water effects at the national scale.</li> <li>Overall, our results showed that across arid and semiarid grasslands, GE is generally beneficial for plant C accumulation but has little effect on soil C stocks. Importantly, our study highlighted the important role of soil water in regulating ecosystem C dynamics with GE across the grasslands of China.</li> </ol>
Data from: Plant quantity and quality regulate the diversity of arthropod communities in a semi-arid grassland
<p> </p> <p>The quantity (e.g. biomass production) and quality (e.g. leaf nutrient content) of plants can strongly influence arthropod diversity, but few studies have tried to disentangle such effects.</p> <p>In this study, we examined the independent effects of plant productivity and leaf traits on the taxon richness and abundance of entire arthropod communities and multiple arthropod orders in replicated monocultures of 15 herbaceous species in the Inner Mongolian grassland.</p> <p>Total taxon richness of arthropod communities increased with plant productivity and an increase in a high nutrient content indicator (PC1) of plant leaf traits (e.g. high leaf nitrogen, phosphorus and water contents), but decreased with an increase in a poor nutrient content indicator (PC2) of plant leaf traits (e.g. high leaf lignin content but low specific leaf area). Total abundance of arthropod communities increased with increasing plant productivity but decreased with increasing PC2.</p> <p>Many common, rather than rare arthropod orders, exhibited strong responses to the changes in plant quantity or quality. Taxon richness of Diptera, Neuroptera and Coleoptera responded positively to the increase in plant productivity and PC1, while taxon richness of Hemiptera and Coleoptera responded negatively to the increase in PC2. Abundances of Diptera and Coleoptera responded positively to the increased plant productivity, whereas abundances of Hymenoptera and Hemiptera responded negatively to the increased PC2. The order-specific responses of arthropod richness and abundance to plant quantity or quality reflected the different food requirements and feeding behaviors of arthropods.</p> <p>Our findings demonstrate that plant quantity and quality can independently control richness and abundance of arthropod communities. The changes in plant productivity and nutrient content of different plant species may alter arthropod diversity and community structure, and these changes in turn may have strong cascading effects on multiple functions (e.g. prey, decomposers, pollinators and predators) in terrestrial ecosystems.</p> <p> </p>
Data from: Thresholds and gradients in a semi-arid grassland: long-term grazing treatments induce slow, continuous and reversible vegetation change
1. Temporal changes in semi-arid ecosystems can include transitions between alternative stable states, involving thresholds and multiple domains of attraction, but can also include relatively continuous, symmetric and reversible shifts within a single stable state. Conceptual state-and-transition models (STMs) describe both types of ecosystem dynamics by including state transitions (plant community changes difficult-to-reverse without substantial input or effort) and phase shifts (easily reversible community changes) as consequences of management practices and environmental variability. Grazing management is purported to be the primary driver of state transitions in current STMs for North American grasslands, but there is limited empirical evidence from these grasslands showing that grazing can cause difficult-to-reverse transitions between alternate stable states. 2 .In a northern mixed-grass prairie in Wyoming, USA, we examined plant community responses to (i) long-term (33-year) grazing intensity treatments (none, light, moderate and heavy stocking rates) and (ii) 8 years of light or no grazing in pastures that were grazed heavily for the previous 25 years. 3. Long-term grazing treatments were associated with distinct, but not stable, plant communities. From year 22 to 33, heavier stocking rates decreased cover of dominant C3 grasses and increased cover of the dominant C4 grass Bouteloua gracilis. 4. Reversing stocking rates from heavy to light or no grazing resulted in reversal of changes induced by prior heavy stocking for dominant C3 grasses, but not for B. gracilis. For both groups, rates of change following grazing treatment reversals were consistent with rates of change during the initial years of the experiment (1982–1990). 5. Synthesis and applications. In a semi-arid rangeland with a long evolutionary history of grazing, different long-term grazing intensity treatments caused slow, continuous, and directional changes with important management implications, but did not appear to induce alternative stable states. For this and similar ecosystems, quantifying the time-scales and compositional gradients associated with key phase shifts may be more important than identifying thresholds between alternative stable states.
Data from: Aridity Modulates N Availability in Arid and Semiarid Mediterranean Grasslands
While much is known about the factors that control each component of the terrestrial nitrogen (N) cycle, it is less clear how these factors affect total N availability, the sum of organic and inorganic forms potentially available to microorganisms and plants. This is particularly true for N-poor ecosystems such as drylands, which are highly sensitive to climate change and desertification processes that can lead to the loss of soil nutrients such as N. We evaluated how different climatic, abiotic, plant and nutrient related factors correlate with N availability in semiarid Stipa tenacissima grasslands along a broad aridity gradient from Spain to Tunisia. Aridity had the strongest relationship with N availability, suggesting the importance of abiotic controls on the N cycle in drylands. Aridity appeared to modulate the effects of pH, plant cover and organic C (OC) on N availability. Our results suggest that N transformation rates, which are largely driven by variations in soil moisture, are not the direct drivers of N availability in the studied grasslands. Rather, the strong relationship between aridity and N availability could be driven by indirect effects that operate over long time scales (decades to millennia), including both biotic (e.g. plant cover) and abiotic (e.g. soil OC and pH). If these factors are in fact more important than short-term effects of precipitation on N transformation rates, then we might expect to observe a lagged decrease in N availability in response to increasing aridity. Nevertheless, our results suggest that the increase in aridity predicted with ongoing climate change will reduce N availability in the Mediterranean basin, impacting plant nutrient uptake and net primary production in semiarid grasslands throughout this region.
Data from: Shrub encroachment can reverse desertification in semi-arid Mediterranean grasslands
The worldwide phenomenon of shrub encroachment in grass-dominated dryland ecosystems is commonly associated with desertification. Studies of the purported desertification effects associated with shrub encroachment are often restricted to relatively few study areas, and document a narrow range of possible impacts upon biota and ecosystem processes. We conducted a study in degraded Mediterranean grasslands dominated by Stipa tenacissima to simultaneously evaluate the effects of shrub encroachment on the structure and composition of multiple biotic community components, and on various indicators of ecosystem function. Shrub encroachment enhanced vascular plant richness, biomass of fungi, actinomycetes and other bacteria, and was linked with greater soil fertility and N mineralization rates. While shrub encroachment may be a widespread phenomenon in drylands, an interpretation that this is an expression of desertification is not universal. Our results suggest that shrub establishment may be an important step in the reversal of desertification processes in the Mediterranean region.
Data from: Reducing soil erosion by improving community functional diversity in semi-arid grasslands
1. Great efforts have been made to control soil erosion by restoring plant communities in degraded ecosystems world-wide. However, soil erosion has not been substantially reduced mainly because current restoration strategies lead to large areas of mono-specific vegetation, which are inefficient in reducing soil erosion because of their simple canopy and root structure. Therefore, an advanced understanding of how community functional composition affects soil erosion processes, as well as an improved restoration scheme to reduce soil erosion, is urgently needed. 2. We investigated the effect of community functional composition on soil erosion in restored semi-arid grasslands on the Loess Plateau of China. Community functional composition of 16 restored grasslands was quantified by community-weighted mean (CWM) and functional diversity (FD) trait values, which were calculated from nine plant functional traits of thirteen locally dominant plant species. Species richness and evenness were also measured. Soil erosion rates were measured using standard erosion plots. The multimodel inference approach was used to estimate the direction and the relative importance of these biodiversity indices in reducing soil erosion. 3. A robust and strong negative effect of functional divergence (FDiv) on soil erosion was found. The prevalence of particular trait combinations can also decrease soil erosion. The greatest control over soil erosion was exerted when the community mean root diameter was small and the root tensile strength was great. 4. Synthesis and applications: These findings imply that community functional diversity plays an important role in reducing soil erosion in semi-arid restored grasslands. This means that current restoration strategies can be greatly improved by incorporating community functional diversity into restoration design. We propose a trait-based restoration framework for reducing soil erosion, termed 'SSM' (Screening–Simulating–Maintaining). SSM aims to translate the target of community functional diversity into community assemblages that can be manipulated by practitioners. Based on this framework, a comprehensive procedure, highlighting functional diversity as the primary concern in determining optimal community assemblages, was developed to meet the pressing need for more effective restoration strategies to reduce soil erosion.
ScienceDex guides
Understand access before you commit
These curated guides explain access requirements, typical timelines, costs, and reuse considerations for widely used research datasets.
Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.