Data coverage
This data set provides the concentrations of soil microbial biomass carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus at biome and global scales. The data were compiled from a comprehensive survey of publications from the late 1970s to 2012 and include 3,422 data points from 315 papers. These data are from soil samples collected primarily at 0-15 cm depth with some from 0-30 cm. In addition, data were compiled for soil microbial biomass concentrations from soil profile samples to depths of 100 cm. Sampling site latitude and longitude were available for the majority of the samples that enabled assembling additional soil properties, site characteristics, vegetation distributions, biomes, and long-term climate data from several global sources of soil, land-cover, and climate data. These site attributes are included with the microbial biomass data. This data set contains two .csv files of the soil microbial biomass C, N, P data. The first provides all compiled results emphasizing the full spatial extent of the data, while the second is a subset that provides only data from a series of profile samples emphasizing the vertical distribution of microbial biomass concentrations. There is a companion file, also in .csv format, of the references for the surveyed publications. A referencenumber relates the data to the respective publication. The concentrations of soil microbial biomass, in combination with other soil databases, were used to estimate the global storage of soil microbial biomass C and N in 0-30 cm and 0-100 cm soil profiles. These storage estimates were combined with a spatial map of 12 major biomes (boreal forest, temperate coniferous forest, temperate broadleaf forest, tropical and subtropical forests, mixed forest, grassland, shrub, tundra, desert, natural wetland, cropland, and pasture) at 0.05-degree by 0.5-degree spatial resolution. The biome map and six estimates of C and N storage and C:N ration in soil microbial biomass are provided in a single netCDF format file. GlobalRTSGFlux1078 This database contains information compiled from published studies on gas flux from soil following rewetting or thawing. The resulting database includes 222 field and laboratory observations focused on rewetting of dry soils, and 116 field laboratory observations focused on thawing of frozen soils studies conducted from 1956 to 2010. Fluxes of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, nitrogen oxide, and ammonia (CO2, CH4, N2O, NO and NH3) were compiled from the literature and the flux rates were normalized for ease of comparison. Field observations of gas flux following rewetting of dry soils include events caused by natural rainfall, simulated rainfall in natural ecosystems, and irrigation in agricultural lands. Similarly, thawing of frozen soils include field observations of natural thawing, simulated freezing-thawing events (i.e., thawing of simulated frozen soil by snow removal), and thawing of seasonal ice in temperate and high latitude regions (Kim et al., 2012). Reported parameters include experiment type, location, site type, vegetation, climate, soil properties, rainfall, soil moisture, soil gas flux after wetting and thawing, peak soil gas flux properties, and the corresponding study references. There is one comma-delimited data file. GlobalPhosphorusHedleyFract1230 This data set provides concentrations of soil phosphorus (P) compiled from the peer-reviewed literature that cited the Hedley fractionation method (Hedley and Stewart, 1982). This database contains estimates of different forms of naturally occurring soil phosphorus, including labile inorganic P, organic P, occluded P, secondary mineral P, apatite P, and total P, based on the analyses of the various Hedley soil fractions. The recent literature survey (Yang and Post, 2011) was restricted to studies of natural, unfertilized, and uncultivated soils since 1995. Ninety measurements of soil P fractions were identified. These were added to the 88 values from soils in natural ecosystems that Cross and Schlesinger (1995) had compiled. Cross and Schlesinger provided a comprehensive survey on Hedley P data prior to 1995. Measurement data are provided for studies published from 1985 through 2010. In addition to the Hedley P fraction measurement data Yang and Post (2011) also compiled information on soil order, soil pH, organic carbon and nitrogen content, as well as the geographic location (longitude and latitude) of the measurement sites. SRDBV51827 The Soil Respiration Database (SRDB) is a near-universal compendium of published soil respiration (Rs) data. The database encompasses published studies that report at least one of the following data measured in the field (not laboratory): annual soil respiration, mean seasonal soil respiration, a seasonal or annual partitioning of soil respiration into its source fluxes, soil respiration temperature response (Q10), or soil respiration at 10 degrees C. The SRDB's orientation is to seasonal and annual fluxes, not shorter-term or chamber-specific measurements, and the database is dominated by temperate, well-drained forest measurement locations. Version 5 (V5) is the compilation of 2,266 published studies with measurements taken between 1961-2017. V5 features more soil respiration data published in Russian and Chinese scientific literature for better global spatio-temporal coverage and improved global climate-space representation. The database is also restructured to have better interoperability with other datasets related to carbon-cycle science. ThermokarstCircumpolarMap1332 This data set provides the distribution of thermokarst landscapes in the boreal and tundra ecoregions within the northern circumpolar permafrost zones. This dataset provides an areal estimate of wetland, lake, and hillslope thermokarst landscapes as of 2015. Estimates of soil organic carbon (SOC) content associated with thermokarst and non-thermokarst landscapes were based on available circumpolar 0 to 3 meter SOC storage data. GlobalSoilRegolithSediment1304 This data set provides high-resolution estimates of the thickness of the permeable layers above bedrock (soil, regolith, and sedimentary deposits) within a global 30-arcsecond (~1-km) grid using the best available data for topography, climate, and geology as input. These data are modeled to represent estimated thicknesses by landform type for the geological present. Respiration622 This data set is a compilation of soil respiration rates (g C m-2 yr-1) from terrestrial and wetland ecosystems reported in the literature prior to 1992. These rates were measured in a variety of ecosystems to examine rates of microbial activity, nutrient turnover, carbon cycling, root dynamics, and a variety of other soil processes. In this summary, only those data based on most or all of one full year of measurements were used so that annual rates of soil respiration could be estimated. Data from soil cores were excluded because the sample coring modifies root respiration. Also included in the data set are biome type, vegetation type, locality, and geographic coordinates, based on information from the original paper. Mean annual temperature and precipitation were based on the original paper; where those data were not included, they were estimated from a gridded global climate database [0.5 degree resolution; Legates D.R. and C.J. Willmott. 1988. Global Air Temperature and Precipitation Data Archive. Department of Geography, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, USA). IsricWiseGrids546 The World Inventory of Soil Emission Potentials (WISE) database currently contains data for over 4300 soil profiles collected mostly between 1950 and 1995. This database has been used to generate a series of uniform data sets of derived soil properties for each of the 106 soil units considered in the Soil Map of the World (FAO-UNESCO, 1974). These data sets were then linked to a 1/2 degree longitude by 1/2 degree la
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