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.
7,355
datasets available to search
ShareScore release 0.7.1
Dataset results
7,355 results for “soils”
Short-Term Effects on Vegetation in Soil Warming Plus Nitrogen Addition Experiment at Harvard Forest 2006
The purpose of this experiment is to examine the interactive affects of warming and N additions on plant diversity. The experiment consists of four treatments (control, heated +N, heated -N, +N only) with six replicates per treatment in a completely randomized design. Average soil temperature in the heated plots will be elevated 5 deg C above ambient by the use of buried heating cables placed at 10 cm depth in the soil and spaced 20 cm apart. The heating cables will be controlled by a data logger that monitors thermistors (5 per plot) every 10 min. Plots will automatically turn on and off to maintain a 5 deg C temperature difference between the heated and control plots. The N addition plots (heated +N, +N only) will be fertilized following the protocol of the Chronic Nitrogen Addition Study. An aqueous solution of NH4NO3 will be applied at a rate equivalent to the low N plots at the chronic N study (5 g m-2 yr-1). Fertilizer will be applied in equal monthly doses during the growing season (Apr-Oct). The control plots and unfertilized, heated plots (heated -N) will receive water only.
Partitioning the Components of Soil Respiration in a Trenching Experiment at Harvard Forest 2009-2010
Total soil respiration (Rt) is a combination of autotrophic (Ra) and heterotrophic respiration (Rh). Several methods have been developed to tease out the components of Rt, such as isotopic analyses, and removing Ra input through tree girdling and root exclusion experiments. Trenching involves severing the rooting system surrounding a plot to remove the Ra component within the plot. This method has some potential limitations. Reduced water uptake in trenched plots could change soil water content, which is one of the environmental controllers of Rt in many ecosystems. Eliminating root inputs could reduce heterotrophic decomposition of SOM via lack of priming. On the other hand, the severed dead roots may temporarily increase available carbon substrate for Rh. We utilized the trenching method to partition the autotrophic and heterotrophic components of soil respiration in an oak dominated forest with the footprint of the LPH tower.
Partitioning the Components of Soil Respiration in a Trenching Experiment at Harvard Forest 2011
Total soil respiration (Rt) is a combination of autotrophic (Ra) and heterotrophic respiration (Rh). We used a trenching method to sever the rooting system surrounding a plot to remove the Ra component within the plot. We used a custom-made automated chamber system to measure soil respiration within the trenched plot and the control in an oak dominated forest with the footprint of the LPH tower. This method has some potential limitations. Reduced water uptake in trenched plots could change soil water content, which is one of the environmental controllers of Rt in many ecosystems. Eliminating root inputs could reduce heterotrophic decomposition of SOM via lack of priming.
Soil Carbon in a Hemlock Stand Infected by Hemlock Woolly Adelgid at Harvard Forest since 2015
The main objective of this research is to study changes in soil carbon stocks (soil C, root biomass) and fluxes (soil respiration) in a hemlock stand that is currently infested by the hemlock woolly adelgid, and where trees are declining in vigor and dying off. Soil respiration is measured throughout the growing season using an automated system, which produces a long-term, high-temporal-resolution series of soil respiration over multiple locations. Soil carbon stocks and root biomass are estimated by sampling soil in multiple locations throughout the hemlock stand following the sampling design used by Serita Frey at Harvard Farm (“Conant plots”). The large number of samples will be used to determine how many should be resampled in the future to be able to determine if any difference in soil C content or root biomass is statistically significant. Soil and roots will be sampled every 5 to 10 years to evaluate the trends in soil carbon stocks during and after the decline of hemlock caused by the hemlock woolly adelgid infestation.
Effects of Warming on Soil Microbial Oxidative Activity at Harvard Forest 2013
As Earth’s climate warms, the massive stores of carbon found in soil are predicted to become depleted, and leave behind a smaller carbon pool that is less accessible to microbes. At a long-term forest soil-warming experiment in central Massachusetts, soil respiration and bacterial diversity have increased, while fungal biomass and microbially-accessible soil carbon have decreased. Here, we evaluate how warming has affected the microbial community’s capability to degrade chemically-complex soil carbon using lignin-amended BioSep beads. We profiled the bacterial and fungal communities using PCR-based methods and completed extracellular enzyme assays as a proxy for potential community function. We found that lignin-amended beads selected for a distinct community containing bacterial taxa closely related to known lignin degraders, as well as members of many genera not previously noted as capable of degrading lignin. Warming tended to drive bacterial community structure more strongly in the lignin beads, while the effect on the fungal community was limited to unamended beads. Of those bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) enriched by the warming treatment, many were enriched uniquely on lignin-amended beads. These taxa may be contributing to enhanced soil respiration under warming despite reduced readily available C availability. In aggregate, these results suggest that there is genetic potential for chemically complex soil carbon degradation that may lead to extended elevated soil respiration with long-term warming.
Soil Respiration at Forest Edges along an Urban to Rural Gradient in Massachusetts 2018-2019
As urbanization and forest fragmentation increase around the globe, it is critical to understand how rates of respiration and carbon losses from soil carbon pools are affected by these processes. This study characterizes soils in fragmented forests along an urban to rural gradient, evaluating the sensitivity of soil respiration to changes in soil temperature and moisture near the forest edge. While previous studies found elevated rates of soil respiration at temperate forest edges in rural areas compared to the forest interior, we find that soil respiration is suppressed at the forest edge in urban areas. At urban sites, respiration rates are 25% lower at the forest edge relative to the interior, likely due to high temperature and aridity conditions near urban edges. While rural soils continue to respire with increasing temperatures, urban soil respiration rates asymptote as temperatures climb and soils dry. Soil temperature- and moisture-sensitivity modeling show that respiration rates in urban soils are less sensitive to rising temperatures than those in rural soils. Scaling these results to Massachusetts (MA), which encompasses 0.25 Mha of urban forest, we find that failure to account for decreases in soil respiration rates near urban forest edges leads to an overestimate of growing-season soil carbon fluxes of greater than 350,000 MgC. This difference is almost 2.5 times that for rural soils in the analogous comparison (underestimate of less than 143,000 MgC), even though rural forest area is more than four times greater than urban forest area in MA. While a changing climate may stimulate carbon losses from rural forest edge soils, urban forests may experience enhanced soil carbon sequestration near the forest edge. These findings highlight the need to capture the effects of forest fragmentation and land use context when making projections about soil behavior and carbon cycling in a warming and increasingly urbanized world. We provide soil respiration, soil temp
Soil Carbon Dioxide and Oxygen at the Soil Warming Plus Nitrogen Experiment at Harvard Forest since 2018
This dataset includes soil air CO2 and O2 concentrations measured from the organic/mineral horizon interface and 10, 30, and 50 cm depths of the mineral soil at SWaN using permanently installed stainless steel gas wells. Measurements were made 4-8 times throughout the year in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
Soil Carbon at Forest Edges along an Urban to Rural Gradient in Massachusetts since 2018
Global proliferation of forest edges through anthropogenic land-use change and forest fragmentation is well documented, and while forest fragmentation has clear consequences for soil carbon (C) cycling, underlying drivers of belowground activity at the forest edge remain poorly understood. Increasing soil C losses via respiration have been observed at rural forest edges, but this process was suppressed at urban forest edges. We offer a comprehensive, coupled investigation of abiotic soil conditions and biotic soil activity from forest edge to interior at eight sites along an urbanization gradient to elucidate how environmental stressors are linked to soil C cycling at the forest edge. Despite significant diverging trends in edge soil C losses between urban and rural sites, we did not find comparable differences in soil % C or microbial enzyme activity, suggesting an unexpected decoupling of soil C fluxes and pools at forest edges. We demonstrate that across site types, soils at forest edges were less acidic than the forest interior (p less than 0.0001), and soil pH was positively correlated with soil calcium, magnesium and sodium content (adj R2 = 0.37), which were also elevated at the edge. Compared to forest interior, forest edge soils exhibited a 17.8% increase in sand content and elevated freeze-thaw frequency with probable downstream effects on root turnover and decomposition. Using these and other novel forest edge data, we demonstrate that significant variation in edge soil respiration (adj R2 = 0.46; p = 0.0002) and C content (adj R2 = 0.86; p less than 0.0001) can be explained using soil parameters often mediated by human activity (e.g., soil pH, trace metal and cation concentrations, soil temperature), and we emphasize the complex influence of multiple, simultaneous global change drivers at forest edges. Forest edge soils reflect legacies of anthropogenic land-use and modern human management, and this must be accounted for to understand soil activity and C
Effects of Long-Term Soil Warming on Ecosystem Function at Harvard Forest 2019
Across biomes, soil biodiversity promotes ecosystem functions. However, whether this relationship will be maintained within ecosystems under climate change is uncertain. Here, using two long-term soil warming experiments, we investigated how warming affects the relationship between ecosystem functions and bacterial diversity across seasons, soil horizons, and warming duration. Soils were sampled from these warming experiments located at the Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, where soils had been heated +5°C above ambient for 13 or 28 years at the time of sampling. We assessed seven measurements representative of different ecosystem functions and nutrient pools. We also surveyed bacterial community diversity. We found that ecosystem function was significantly affected by season, with autumn samples having a higher intercept than summer samples in our model, suggesting a higher overall baseline of ecosystem function in the fall. The effect of warming on bacterial diversity was similarly affected by season, where warming in the summer was associated with decreased bacterial evenness in the organic horizon. Despite the decreased bacterial evenness in the warmed plots, we found that the relationship between ecosystem function and bacterial diversity was unaffected by warming or warming duration. Our findings highlight that season is a consistent driver of ecosystem function as well as a modulator of climate change effects on bacterial community evenness.
Effects of Long-Term Soil Warming on Microbial Yield, Acquisition, and Stress Traits at Harvard Forest 2014
Soil microbial traits drive ecosystem functions. This relationship can explain why microbial functional diversity is typically positively correlated with ecosystem function. However, microbial adaptation to climate change related warming stress can shift microbial traits with direct implications for carbon cycling in the soil. Here, we investigated how long-term warming affects the relationship between microbial trait diversity and ecosystem function. Soils were sampled after 24 years of +5\degree C warming alongside unheated control soils from the Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research site. Ecosystem function was estimated from six different enzyme activities and microbial biomass. This data was coupled with metatranscriptomics sequencing, where reads were assigned to yield, acquisition, or stress trait categories. We found that in organic horizon soils, warming decreased the richness of acquisition-related traits. In the mineral soils, we observed that heated soils exhibited a negative relationship with the richness of acquisition related traits. These results suggest that the microbial communities exposed to long-term warming is shifting away from a resource acquisition life history strategy.
Microbial, Plant, and Soil Impacts on Soil Nutrient Cycling in Harvard Forest and Greater Boston 2021-2022
Microbes are the driving force behind nutrient cycling within soils, secreting enzymes necessary to break down organic matter, immobilizing nutrients and C, or transferring nutrients to plant hosts. Even though nutrients would almost never move through ecosystems without microbes, we know little about how their composition and activity is related to ecosystem nutrient cycling, and their importance relative to plant and soil abiotic factors. In this study, we sought to determine which commonly measured soil microbial community characteristics best explain soil N and P cycling, and the relative contributions of microbial, plant, and abiotic factors in explaining these processes.
Soil Respiration, Temperature and Moisture at Harvard Forest EMS Tower 1995-2014
We have been making long-term soil respiration measurements at our transect sites since the summer of 1995. The rainfall exclusion experiment began in May of 2001 and autochamber measurements began in 2003. A root exclusion experiment (trenching) was conducted from 2012-2014.
Nitrogen mineralization potential in soils collected from the Jornada Basin LTER-I transect and extracted at field collection time, 1989
This data package contains nitrogen mineralization data from soils collected along the Jornada Basin LTER (LTER-I) transects in southern New Mexico, USA. These transects are located in a livestock exclosure established in 1982 in the Chihuahuan Desert Rangeland Research Center (CDRRC) and run from the middle of the College Playa up to the foot of Mt. Summerford (2.7 km in length). Prior to the exclosure, the study site was moderately to heavily grazed for the past 100 years. The Treatment transect was treated annually with ammonium nitrate fertilizer (NH4NO3 at 10g N/m2/yr) until 1987. Along each transect, 91 stations, each with a plant intercept line, are spaced at 30 meter intervals. For this dataset, 60 soil samples (total) were collected along the control and fertilized treatment transects and mixed with potassium chloride solution (KCl) on Nov 27, 1989, then filter extracted the following day. The dataset contains a soil moisture correction factor, sample weights, total inorganic nitrogen (NO3+NO2-N), and nitrogen in ammonium (NH4-N) for Week F (field) of nitrogen mineralization potentials. The soil mineralization data complements the biomass harvest measurements that occurred in September 1989 (dataset knb-lter-jrn.210015001). This study is complete.
Nitrogen mineralization potential in soils collected from the Jornada Basin LTER-I transect and extracted at incubation time 0, 1989
This data package contains nitrogen mineralization data from soils collected along the Jornada Basin LTER (LTER-I) transects in southern New Mexico, USA. These transects are located in a livestock exclosure established in 1982 in the Chihuahuan Desert Rangeland Research Center (CDRRC) and run from the middle of the College Playa up to the foot of Mt. Summerford (2.7 km in length). Prior to the exclosure, the study site was moderately to heavily grazed for the past 100 years. The Treatment transect was treated annually with ammonium nitrate fertilizer (NH4NO3 at 10g N/m2/yr) until 1987. Along each transect, 91 stations, each with a plant intercept line, are spaced at 30 meter intervals. For this dataset, 60 soil samples (total) were collected along the control and fertilized treatment transects and mixed with potassium chloride solution (KCl) on Nov 27, 1989, then filter extracted four days later to give a time = 0 incubation value. The dataset contains a soil moisture correction factor, sample weights, total inorganic nitrogen (NO3+NO2-N), and nitrogen in ammonium (NH4-N) for Week 0 of nitrogen mineralization potentials. The soil mineralization data complements the biomass harvest measurements that occurred in September 1989 (dataset knb-lter-jrn.210015001). This study is complete.
Soil water content measurements and rainfall data for plots with experimentally altered precipitation and nutrient inputs at the Jornada Basin LTER site, 2011-ongoing
This dataset contains soil volumetric water content data collected starting in 2011 for a long-term precipitation and nutrient manipulation experiment at the Jornada Basin LTER site in southern New Mexico, U.S.A. This experiment uses precipitation shelters and irrigation treatments to manipulate water inputs, and fertilization treatments to alter nitrogen input to 2.5 x 2.5 meter plots in a desert grassland. Soil sensors are installed at surface and deep soil layers in each plot and collect hourly averages of volumetric water content using a time-domain reflectometry method. This dataset contains daily averages. This is an ongoing study and the dataset will be updated yearly.
Aggregated 30-minute soil water and temperature data from 9 NPP shrub sites at Jornada Basin LTER, 2013 - 2024 (for Pinos et al 2025 manuscript)
This is an aggregated dataset of 30-minute soil temperature and moisture data from 9 shrub-dominated NPP study sites at the Jornada Basin LTER site in southern New Mexico, U.S.A. Collection of soil volumetric water content data at all of the 15 Jornada LTER NPP sites, New Mexico, supports the environmental monitoring objectives of the Jornada LTER monitoring program that look at plant-soil water dynamics. Volumetric water content and soil temperature are measured every 30 minutes at an automated meteorological station installed at all 15 of the Jornada LTER program’s NPP sites. This dataset aggregates only the stations located at the 9 sites with shrub-dominated vegetation cover (creosotebush, tarbush, and mesquite dune sites). Measurements are made every 30 minutes at 10 cm, 20 cm, and 30 cm soil depths. This dataset is in support of the Pinos et al. 2025 manuscript.
Soil and foliar carbon and nitrogen content and stable isotope ratios from rainfall manipulation experiments at the Jornada Basin LTER, 2011-2020
As rainfall extremes are expected to increase in novel magnitude and frequency, especially in dryland regions, we asked how prolonged and directional shifts to water availability may affect ecosystem carbon and nitrogen dynamics. This data set includes foliar and soil carbon and nitrogen stable isotope and concentration data collected from multiple long-term rainfall manipulation experiments at the Jornada Basin LTER. Datasets also include rainfall data adjusted to rainfall manipulation intensities. Collection dates range from 5 to 14 years since the onset of experimental treatments. The primary plant species targeted for this study were the dominant grass, Bouteloua eriopoda, and the dominant shrub, Prosopis glandulosa.
Seasonal Soil Sampling of Grass-dominated, Mesquite-dominated, and Ecotone Sites at the Jornada Basin LTER site for the Analysis of Microbial Community Variance, 2022-2023
Fungal and bacterial soil communities were analyzed to assess the influence of woody shrub encroachment on soil microbial communities. Three study sites in the Jornada Long Term Ecological Research Site were selected to represent a grass-dominated site, a woody shrub dominated site, and an ecotone of woody shrubs and grass. The field sampling began in October 2022 and concluded in July 2023 with five sampling periods that aimed to capture seasonal variation: October 2022, January 2023, March 2023, May 2023, and July 2023. This dataset includes data pertaining to the soil microbial composition, environmental characteristics, microbial sequence processing, and documentation of the code utilized for data processing and statistical analyses. Data on soil microbial composition was collected from Phospholipid Fatty-Acid composition data from soil samples. Data on environmental characteristics were collected from on-site temperature probes, laboratory assessments of soil properties, and Jornada meteorological stations. Information pertaining to microbial sequence processing is included in the documented code as well as in the record of the primers utilized.
NSW01 Soil water chemistry from porous cup lysimeters on watersheds with different fire treatment
Soil water nitrogen composition is measured using porous cup lysimeters. Measurements include nitrate, ammonia, phosphate, and organic nitrogen and phosphorus. Variables of interest are rainfall patterns, vegetation types, and time since burning.
Groundwater, soil moisture, light and weather data in Brownsville forest, Nassawadox, VA, 2019-2023
This dataset includes groundwater, soil moisture, weather and light data collected in eight study sites in the Brownsville forested area (VA). In particular, sites H5 and H7 characterize the high forest where healthy Pinus taeda dominate, sites L1 and L6 characterize the low forest, where barren or dead Pinus taeda are present, sites M1 and M2 characterize the medium forest, representing transition between high and low forest, transition site where dead trees and saltmarsh vegetation live together and marsh site dominated by saltmarsh vegetation. Data collection, started in January 2019, is done for VCR-LTER and CCZN (Coastal Critical Zone Network) long term projects. CTD-Diver are used to measure groundwater pressure, specific conductance and temperature. They hang from a cable in six wells, one for each study site. Water pressure is compensated using barometric pressure data collected by the weather station nearby. Water levels are georeferenced to NAVD 88. Two soil moisture sensors for each site are placed 7-10 cm and 30 cm below the ground surface to detect water content, specific conductance and temperature of the first soil layer. Two weather stations are always installed in different sites. Their position is periodically changed to cover all sites. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2012322, Collaborative Research: Network Cluster: The Coastal Critical Zone: Processes that transform landscapes and fluxes between land and sea.
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.