Code for: Sensitivity of soil nutrient pools, but stability of microbial processes, under

Data from a Department of Agriculture study on soil nutrient pools and microbial processes under experimental rainfall reduction and bovine grazing gradients. The experiment was conducted at two sites in Montana and Wyoming over two treatment years and three recovery years, with results published in 2025. It includes measurements of soil available phosphorus, micronutrients, nitrate, extracellular enzyme activities, and microbial community composition.

Use Cases

• Modeling soil nitrate dynamics based on experimental rainfall reduction gradients.
• Analyzing the stability of extracellular enzyme activity potentials under varying grazing pressures.
• Comparing the sensitivity of soil phosphorus and micronutrient pools to drought intensity.
• Investigating linkages between plant, animal, and microbial responses to drought as mentioned in the study description.

Strengths

• Experimental design includes five levels of drought intensity and a gradient of grazing pressure.
• Data spans two distinct geographic sites in Montana and Wyoming.
• Temporal coverage includes two years of treatment application and three years of recovery monitoring.
• License is CC-BY-4.0, permitting broad reuse with attribution.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data files are in R and TEXT formats, which may require specific software for analysis.

Provenance

Source

Department of Agriculture

Collection Method

Field experiment imposing a two-year drought gradient and bovine grazing pressure gradient at two prairie sites.

Time Range

Covers two treatment years and three recovery years (specific years not provided).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:47:43.408046

Geography

Northern mixed-grass prairie sites in Montana and Wyoming, USA.