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.
5
datasets available to search
ShareScore release 0.9.0
Dataset results
5 results for “soil ecosystem engineering”
Data from: Foraging by an avian ecosystem engineer extensively modifies the litter and soil layer in forest ecosystems
<p>Ecosystem engineers physically modify their environment, thereby altering habitats for other organisms. Increasingly, 'engineers' are recognised as an important focus for conservation and ecological restoration because their actions affect a range of ecosystem processes and thereby influence how ecosystems function. The superb lyrebird Menura novaehollandiae is proposed as an ecosystem engineer in forests of south-eastern Australia due to the volume of soil and litter it turns over when foraging. We measured the seasonal and spatial patterns of foraging by lyrebirds and the amount of soil displaced in forests in the Central Highlands, Victoria. We tested the effects of foraging on litter, soil nutrients and soil physical properties by using an experimental approach with three treatments: lyrebird exclusion, lyrebird exclusion with simulated foraging, and non-exclusion reference plots. Treatments were replicated in three forest types in each of three forest blocks. Lyrebirds foraged extensively in all forest types in all seasons. On average, lyrebirds displaced 155.7 t/ha of litter and soil in a 12-month period. Greater displacement occurred where vegetation complexity (<50 cm height) was low. After two years of lyrebird exclusion, soil compaction (top 7.5 cm) increased by 37% in exclusion plots compared with baseline measures, whilst in unfenced plots it decreased by 22%. Litter depth was almost three times greater in fenced than unfenced plots. Soil moisture, pH and soil nutrients showed no difference between treatments. The enormous extent of litter and soil turned over by the superb lyrebird is unparalleled by any other vertebrate soil engineer in terrestrial ecosystems globally. The profound influence of such foraging activity on forest ecosystems is magnified by its year-round pattern and widespread distribution. The disturbance regime that lyrebirds impose has implications for diverse ecosystem processes including decomposition and nutrient cycling, the composition of litter- and soil-dwelling invertebrate communities, the shaping of ground-layer vegetation patterns, and fire behavior and post-fire ecosystem recovery. Maintaining lyrebird populations as a key facilitator of ecosystem function is now timely and critical as unprecedented wildfires in eastern Australia in summer 2019/2020 have severely burned ~12 million ha of forest, including ~30% of the geographic range of the superb lyrebird.</p>
Data from: Mammalian engineers drive soil microbial communities and ecosystem functions across a disturbance gradient
The effects of mammalian ecosystem engineers on soil microbial communities and ecosystem functions in terrestrial ecosystems are poorly known. Disturbance from livestock has been widely reported to reduce soil function, but disturbance by animals that forage in the soil may partially offset these negative effects of livestock, directly and/or indirectly by shifting the composition and diversity of soil microbial communities. Understanding the role of disturbance from livestock and ecosystem engineers in driving soil microbes and functions is essential for formulating sustainable ecosystem management and conservation policies. We compared soil bacterial community composition and enzyme concentrations within four microsites: foraging pits of two vertebrates, the indigenous short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) and the exotic European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), and surface and subsurface soils along a gradient in grazing-induced disturbance in an arid woodland. Microbial community composition varied little across the disturbance gradient, but there were substantial differences among the four microsites. Echidna pits supported a lower relative abundance of Acidobacteria and Cyanobacteria, but a higher relative abundance of Proteobacteria than rabbit pits and surface microsites. Moreover, these microsite differences varied with disturbance. Rabbit pits had a similar profile to the subsoil or the surface soils under moderate and high, but not low disturbance. Overall, echidna foraging pits had the greatest positive effect on function, assessed as mean enzyme concentrations, but rabbits had the least. The positive effects of echidna foraging on function were indirectly driven via microbial community composition. In particular, increasing activity was positively associated with increasing relative abundance of Proteobacteria, but decreasing Acidobacteria. Our study suggests that soil disturbance by animals may offset, to some degree, the oft-reported negative effects of grazing-induced disturbance on soil function. Further, our results suggest that most of this effect will be derived from echidnas, with little positive effects due to rabbits. Activities that enhance the habitat for echidnas or reduce rabbit populations are likely to have a positive effect on soil function in these systems.
Data from: Mammalian engineers drive soil microbial communities and ecosystem functions across a disturbance gradient
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Restoration potential of threatened ecosystem engineers increases with aridity: broad scale effects on soil nutrients and function
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Foraging by an avian ecosystem engineer extensively modifies the litter and soil layer in forest ecosystems
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
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.