Seagrass Growth and Microbiome Responses to Nutrient Manipulation in a Field Experiment

A field-based factorial experiment by Renske Jongen, last updated in April 2026, investigates the role of sediment and rhizosphere microbial communities in mediating the growth of the seagrass Zostera muelleri under low, medium, and high nutrient levels. The dataset, shared under a CC-BY-4.0 license, provides experimental evidence linking belowground microbial interactions to plant performance across a nutrient stress spectrum. The data is stored in CSV and XLSX formats and totals 34.0 KB.

Use Cases

• Modeling seagrass root biomass responses based on nutrient levels and microbial community disruption.
• Analyzing the enrichment of specific bacterial taxa, such as nitrogen fixers, in the rhizosphere under low nutrient conditions.
• Investigating the mediating role of belowground microbial communities on plant survival under nutrient excess.
• Informing seagrass conservation and restoration strategies with field-based experimental data on belowground processes.

Strengths

• Data originates from a fully factorial, field-based experiment, providing ecological realism.
• Explicitly tests three nutrient levels (low, medium, high) and microbial community manipulations.
• Shared under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license for reuse.
• Focuses on often-overlooked belowground processes in marine plants.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is small at 34.0 KB, indicating limited scope.

Provenance

Source

Renske Jongen via figshare.

Collection Method

A fully factorial field experiment manipulating nutrients and microbial communities.

Time Range

The experiment date is unspecified; dataset was updated in April 2026.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04 13 03:35:43.

Geography

Field location is unspecified but involves the marine seagrass Zostera muelleri.