Plant and Soil Bacterial Diversity in 30 Suburban Lawns, Raleigh NC

A dataset from a study investigating the relationship between household income and biodiversity in suburban lawns. It includes plant genus counts, soil bacterial OTU counts, diversity metrics, and soil pH measurements from 30 homes in Raleigh, North Carolina, across census block groups with median incomes from $22,000 to $208,000. The dataset was authored by Elsa Youngsteadt and last updated in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Testing correlations between household income and plant genus diversity based on census block group data.
• Analyzing the relationship between soil pH and bacterial richness across different sampling sites.
• Modeling biodiversity metrics like Shannon's H and evenness in a humid, subtropical urban environment.

Strengths

• Includes data from 30 distinct sampling sites, providing a basis for statistical analysis.
• Contains 144 identified plant genera and 7,908 bacterial OTUs, offering specific biodiversity measures.
• Links ecological data to concrete socioeconomic variables (median household income per census block group).

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are unknown, which limits suitability assessment.
• Geographic scope is limited to one city (Raleigh, NC) in a humid, subtropical climate.
• Sampling locations are anonymized for privacy, preventing precise geospatial analysis.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Elsa Youngsteadt.

Collection Method

Field surveys of plant diversity and soil sampling for bacterial analysis across 30 suburban homes.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-22 06:35:37; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Raleigh, North Carolina, USA.