Soil morphology and organic matter dynamics under cheatgrass and sagebrush-steppe plant communities

Widespread cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) invasion represents a major shift in species dominance that may alter ecosystem processes across much of the western US. To investigate differences following such conversion, soil morphology and organic matter under cheatgrass-dominated and native shrub-steppe vegetation were compared by standard soil analysis procedures at seven paired sites in Idaho and Utah. Results suggest that, following conversion to cheatgrass dominance, increased porosity and labile organic inputs enhance microbial decomposition in near-surface horizons beneath cheatgrass compared to adjacent soils under native vegetation. Enhanced decomposition could result in depletion of long-term SOM, leading...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation, Journal Citation; Tags: Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis Beetle & A., Bromus tectorum L., Cheatgrass, Invasive weeds, Journal of Arid Environments, All tags... Sagebrush steppe plant community, Soil morphology, Soil organic matter, Wyoming big sagebrush, Fewer tags

Soil surface properties and roughness data at two experimental restoration sites within the Southwestern USA

This data release presents data used for analyzing spatial and temporal differences in soil surface roughness within selected biocrust communities. These records were collected by ground-based lidar for 121, 1m x 3m soil plots with biological soil crusts (biocrusts). Roughness was estimated from 5 mm resolution data (CloudCompare v. 2.10.2, 2019) for two Great Basin Desert sites (UTTR-1; UTTR-2) in December 2015 and one Chihuahuan Desert site (JER) in February 2016. Data were again collected in June 2018 for UTTR-1 and UTTR-2. Additional field and laboratory data were included within this study to understand differences in soil surface roughness between UTTR and JER as well as between the 2016 and 2018 surveys at...

Categories: Data; Tags: 5 mm resolution, Chihuahuan Desert, Ecology, Geography, Geomorphology, All tags... Great Basin, Great Basin Desert, Hill Air Force Base, Information Sciences, Jornada Experimental Range, Las Cruces, New Mexico, Remote Sensing, Salt Lake City, Soil Sciences, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), Utah, biocrust, biological soil crusts, biological treatment, biota, data release, digital point cloud, ecosystem disturbance, experimental restoration treatments, field data, field experiments, field inventory and monitoring, field methods, geoscientificInformation, ground-based lidar, habitat alteration and disturbance, laboratory data, laboratory experiments, laboratory methods, lidar, plot sampling, remediation, soil morphology, soil plots, soil resources, soil surface roughness, southwestern United States, Fewer tags