DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3929632
title: Soil and litter chemistry, soil microbial communities and litter decomposition from tropical forest and oil palm

description: <b>Description: </b>A study examining the interactions between soil chemistry, litter chemistry and soil microbial decomposers as controls on rates of litter decomposition across a tropical land use disturbance gradient. Co-located soil and litter samples were collected from old growth forest, moderately logged forest, heavily logged forest and oil palm plantations. Soil and litter were chemically characterised and soil bacterial and fungal community composition and abundance were measured. These were then combined in fully factorial ex-situ microcosms and measured litter decomposition rates at 3 time points during different stages of decomposition.<b>Project: </b>This dataset was collected as part of the following SAFE research project: <b>Biodiversity and land-use impacts on tropical ecosystem function (BALI): Quantifying biogeochemistry across forest disturbance gradients in Sabah</b><b>Funding: </b>These data were collected as part of research funded by: UK NERC-funded Biodiversity And Land-use Impacts on Tropical Ecosystem Function (BALI) consortium (Standard grant, NE/K016377/1)This dataset is released under the CC-BY 4.0 licence, requiring that you cite the dataset in any outputs, but has the additional condition that you acknowledge the contribution of these funders in any outputs.<b>Permits: </b>These data were collected under permit from the following authorities:Sabah Biodiversity Centre (Research licence JKM/MBS.1000-2/2 JLD.5 (20))Sabah Biodiversity Centre (Export licence JKM/MBS.1000-2/3 JLD.2 (70))<b>XML metadata: </b>GEMINI compliant metadata for this dataset is available here<b>Files: </b>This consists of 1 file: SAFE_Dataset.xlsx<b>SAFE_Dataset.xlsx</b>This file contains dataset metadata and 5 data tables:<b>Soil_Properties</b> (described in worksheet Soil_Properties)Description: Basic measured soil propertiesNumber of fields: 9Number of data rows: 20Fields: <b>Plot</b>: Plot name corresponding to the GEM Carbon plot where soils were sampled (Field type: id)<b>Plot_ID</b>: Plot ID indicating land use as referenced in the Frontiers in forests and global change publication "Soil microbial community and litter quality controls on decomposition across a tropical forest disturbance gradient" (Field type: categorical)<b>location_name</b>: Name of subplot where soils were collected (Field type: location)<b>gravimetric moisture content</b>: Soil moisture content at the time of sample collection (Field type: numeric)<b>soil_pH</b>: Soil pH measured on fresh soils (Field type: numeric)<b>soil_N</b>: Total soil Nitrogen (Field type: numeric)<b>soil_C</b>: Total soil Carbon (Field type: numeric)<b>soil_C.N</b>: Soil carbon to nitrogen ratio (Field type: numeric)<b>soil_P</b>: soil inorganic phosphorus (Field type: numeric)<b>Litter_Chemistry</b> (described in worksheet Litter_Chemistry)Description: Litter chemistry data of mixed forest floor litter, collected, sorted to remove humified material, woody debris and driedNumber of fields: 20Number of data rows: 40Fields: <b>Plot</b>: Plot name corresponding to the GEM Carbon plot where soils were sampled (Field type: id)<b>Plot_ID</b>: Plot ID indicating land use as referenced in the Frontiers in forests and global change publication "Soil microbial community and litter quality controls on decomposition across a tropical forest disturbance gradient" (Field type: categorical)<b>location_name</b>: Name of subplot where soils were collected (Field type: location)<b>Pretreatment</b>: Whether the litter sample was sterilised by autoclaving or not (Field type: categorical)<b>leaf_K</b>: leaf potassium concentration (Field type: numeric)<b>leaf_Ca</b>: leaf Calcium concentration (Field type: numeric)<b>leaf_Mg</b>: leaf Magnesium concentration (Field type: numeric)<b>leaf_Al</b>: leaf aluminium concentration (Field type: numeric)<b>leaf_P</b>: leaf phosphorus concentrations (Field type: numeric)<b>solubles</b>: leaf soluble cell content (Field type: numeric)<b>hem_pro_cel_lig_rec</b>: leaf hemicellulose, proteins, cellulose, lignin and recalcitrant fibres (Field type: numeric)<b>hem_pro</b>: leaf hemicellulose and proteins (Field type: numeric)<b>cel_lig_rec</b>: leaf cellulose, lignin and recalcitrant fibres (Field type: numeric)<b>cel</b>: leaf cellulose (Field type: numeric)<b>lig_rec</b>: leaf lignin and recalcitrants (Field type: numeric)<b>leaf_N</b>: leaf nitrogen concentration (Field type: numeric)<b>leaf_C</b>: leaf carbon concentration (Field type: numeric)<b>c.n</b>: leaf carbon to nitrogen ration (Field type: numeric)<b>d13c</b>: leaf carbon stable isotope ratio (Field type: numeric)<b>d15n</b>: leaf nitrogen stable isotope ratio (Field type: numeric)<b>PLFA_Concentrations</b> (described in worksheet PLFA_Concentrations)Description: Phospolipid Fatty Acid (PLFA) concentrations as biomarkers of soil bacteria and fungi. Extracted from freeze dried soils prior to the microcosm experimentNumber of fields: 10Number of data rows: 20Fields: <b>Plot</b>: Plot name corresponding to the GEM Carbon plot where soils were sampled (Field type: id)<b>Plot_ID</b>: Plot ID indicating land use as referenced in the Frontiers in forests and global change publication "Soil microbial community and litter quality controls on decomposition across a tropical forest disturbance gradient" (Field type: categorical)<b>location_name</b>: Name of subplot where soils were collected (Field type: location)<b>Total_PLFA</b>: Total PLFA concentrations extracted from soil samples (Field type: numeric)<b>Fungal_PLFA</b>: Fungal PLFA biomarker concentrations extracted from soils (Field type: numeric)<b>Bacteria_PLFA</b>: Bacteria PLFA biomarkers extracted from soils (Field type: numeric)<b>Fungal:Bacteria</b>: Ratio of fungal to bacteria PLFAs (Field type: numeric)<b>Gram_Pos_PLFA</b>: Gram Positive PLFA Biomarker concentrations extracted from soil (Field type: numeric)<b>Gram_Neg_PLFA</b>: Gram Negative PLFA Biomarker concentrations extracted from soil (Field type: numeric)<b>GramPos:GramNeg</b>: Gram positive to Gram negative PLFA ratios (Field type: numeric)<b>Soil_Microbial_Communities</b> (described in worksheet Soil_Microbial_Communities)Description: Summary diversity statistics from bacterial 16S and fungal ITS biomarker microbial sequencing. DNA extracted from soils prior to microcosm experimentNumber of fields: 9Number of data rows: 20Fields: <b>Plot</b>: Plot name corresponding to the GEM Carbon plot where soils were sampled (Field type: id)<b>Plot_ID</b>: Plot ID indicating land use as referenced in the Frontiers in forests and global change publication "Soil microbial community and litter quality controls on decomposition across a tropical forest disturbance gradient" (Field type: categorical)<b>location_name</b>: Name of subplot where soils were collected (Field type: location)<b>Bacteria_Richness</b>: Number of observed bacterial taxa from sequencing of 16S marker genes from soil samples (Field type: numeric)<b>Bacteria_Shannon</b>: Bacterial Shannon diversity from 16S Marker gene sequencing (Field type: numeric)<b>Fungal_Richness</b>: Number of observed fungal taxa from sequencing of 16S marker genes from soil samples (Field type: numeric)<b>Fungal_Shannon</b>: Fungal Shannon diversity from 16S Marker gene sequencing (Field type: numeric)<b>Saprotrophic_Fungal_Richness</b>: Number of observed saprotrophic fungal taxa from sequencing of 16S marker genes from soil samples (Field type: numeric)<b>Saprotrophic_Fungal_Shannon</b>: Saprotrophic Fungal Shannon diversity from 16S Marker gene sequencing (Field type: numeric)<b>Ex_Situ_Litter_Decomposition</b> (described in worksheet Ex_Situ_Litter_Decomposition)Description: Fully factorial litter decomposition experiment. 16 unique soil and litter combinations (4x4) were incubated in petri dishes at constant temperature and moisture and mass loss measured after 31, 105 and 398 days.Number of fields: 8Number of data rows: 240Fields: <b>location_name</b>: Name of subplot where soils were collected (Field type: location)<b>Soil_ID</b>: Soil ID indicating which land use soil was collected from (Field type: categorical)<b>Litter_Location</b>: Location of which GEM carbon plot the litter was collected from. Litter was collected from the 5 carbon subplots as per soil collection and homogenised into one composite sample per carbon plot (Field type: location)<b>Litter_ID</b>: Litter ID indicating which land use litter was collected from (Field type: categorical)<b>Experimental_Block</b>: Which experimental block the microcosm was assigned to. N= 5 (Field type: replicate)<b>Timepoint</b>: At what timepoint the litter was harvested from each microcosm (Field type: categorical)<b>Mass_Loss</b>: The mass loss of litter relative to the starting mass of 1g (Field type: numeric)<b>home_away</b>: Descriptor for whether the soil and litter combination in microcosm (Field type: categorical)<b>Date range: </b>2014-10-01 to 2018-09-01<b>Latitudinal extent: </b>4.6402 to 4.9539<b>Longitudinal extent: </b>117.4518 to 117.7942