---TITLE: Oechel_BE_2004-2010_SoilEcology_Data

Soil Ecology Data for

Biocomplexity Associated with the Response of Tundra Carbon Balance to Warming and Drying Across Multiple Spatial and Temporal Scales

---AUTHOR(S):

David Lipson

-Name(s) of PI and all co-PIs

Walter Oechel (PI)
John Kimball (Co-PI)
Craig Tweedie (Co-PI) 

-Complete mailing address, telephone/facsimile Nos., web pages and E-mail address of PI

Global Change Research Group
Department of Biology
PS-240
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182

Phone: (619) 594-6613
Fax: (619) 594-7831
Email: gcrg@sciences.sdsu.edu
Web: http://gcrg.sdsu.edu


-Similar contact information for data questions (if different than above)

---FUNDING SOURCE AND GRANT NUMBER:

National Science Foundation, Award Number: 0421588

---DATA SET OVERVIEW:

This research examines how biological and physical processes interact to control carbon uptake, storage and release in Arctic tundra ecosystems and how the self-organizing nature of these interactions varies across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Approximately 25% of the world's soil organic carbon reservoir is stored at high northern latitudes in permafrost and seasonally-thawed soils in the Arctic, a region that is currently undergoing unprecedented warming and drying, as well as dramatic changes in human land use. Understanding how changes in annual and inter-annual ecosystem productivity interact and potentially offset the balance and stability of the Arctic soil carbon reservoir is of utmost importance to global climate change science. If there is a net loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases (namely CO2 and CH4), greenhouse warming could be enhanced. This non-linear, potentially positive feedback response could very quickly cause Arctic terrestrial ecosystems to function in a manner not known to us from the late Holocene and with globally significant implications.

The activities in this research benefit from a foundation and wealth of international and national carbon cycle research undertaken in northern Alaska and other Arctic regions over the past three decades. The group will initiate a comprehensive study involving an integrated framework of multi-scale aircraft and satellite remote sensing, micrometeorological and CO2 and CH4 flux measurements and hydro-ecological process model simulations over a 350km North-South transect spanning the dominant Arctic topographic and land cover units of northern Alaska. The study region encompasses many long-term measurement sites that have been in place for 5 to 10 years. They will expand these observations to include an extensive soil moisture manipulation involving a 60 hectare tundra flooding/draining experiment near Barrow Alaska on the Arctic Coastal Plain. The objective of this study is to quantify linkages between soil moisture and carbon uptake, storage and release over multiple spatial (microbial to landscape) and temporal (minutes to decades) scales. Only by increasing the spatial extent of our experimental manipulations and the duration of our observational time series can we better understand and predict the effect of scale on the complex coupling within Arctic ecosystems; namely, how small scale processes participate as components of higher scale phenomenon and how higher scale phenomenon constrain the former lower scale processes. This knowledge will improve our understanding of the current behavior and potential response of arctic tundra to global change, resulting in better predictions of feedbacks to climate and the global carbon cycle. 

The dataset includes:

   soil electrical conductivity
   soil oxidation reduction potential
   soil pH
   other soil characteristics, including:
		topography, high or low
		gravimetric water content, g H2O per g dry soil
		bulk density, g soil per cm3
		volumetric water content, cm3 H20 per cm3 soil
		proteolysis rate, nmole amino-N per g soil per hour
		proteolysis rate, nmole amino-N per cm3 soil per hour
		extractable organic C, ug/g soil
		extractable organic C, ug/cm3 soil
		microbial biomass C, ug/g soil (fumigation-extraction method)
		microbial biomass C, ug/cm3 soil (fumigation-extraction method)
		extractable amino N, ug/g soil
		extractable amino N, ug/cm3 soil
		microbial bimass amino-N, ug/g soil (fumigation-extraction method)
		microbial bimass amino-N, ug/cm3 soil (fumigation-extraction method)
	soil water chemistry, including:
		absorbance at 260 nm, standardized to tyrosine
		iron (II)
		iron (III)
		total iron
		dissolved organic C
		ammonium
		amino-N by ninhydrin method
		phosphate

-Time period covered by the data

2004-09-14 to 2010-08-31

-Physical location of the measurement or platform (latitude/longitude/elevation)

Biocomplexity Experiment site, Barrow, AK.

-Data source, if applicable (e.g. for operational data include agency)

-Any World Wide Web address references (i.e. additional documentation such as Project WWW site)

---INSTRUMENT DESCRIPTION:

n/a

---DATA COLLECTION and PROCESSING:

n/a

---DATA FORMAT:

Microsoft Excel

---DATA REMARKS:

Each Excel file has a "metadata" sheet describing data columns.

---REFERENCES:

-List of documents cited in this data set description