Fertilized and Unfertilized Prairie Plant and Nutrient Data from a 15-Year Iowa Experiment

Ames, Iowa, United States hosts a 15-year experiment measuring plant species composition and nutrient makeup in prairie agro-ecosystems. Data includes point-intercept species composition records and biomass nutrient analysis via an Organic Elementar Vario Micro Cube analyzer. The dataset was created by Marissa Osterloh and is available under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Modeling nitrate loss and ecosystem services based on described plant nutrient composition data.
• Analyzing long-term effects of fertilization on prairie plant communities based on the 15-year experimental treatment data.
• Training models to predict prairie biomass nutrient content based on species composition data gathered via the point-intercept method.

Strengths

• Data originates from a 15-year long-term experiment, providing a substantial temporal perspective.
• Includes both plant species composition and detailed nutrient analysis for biomass samples.
• Explicitly compares fertilized and unfertilized treatment groups.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The dataset size is listed as 0.0 B, indicating a very limited scope or potential metadata issue.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Collected via point-intercept method for species composition and laboratory nutrient analysis of biomass samples.

Time Range

15-year experiment

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-28 21:45:46; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Near Ames, Iowa, United States