Tropical Forest Soil Trace Gas Flux After Root Mortality

This dataset contains measurements from a controlled experiment on sand and clay tropical forest soils in the Tapajos National Forest. NASA researchers induced root mortality via trenching to test its short-term effect on soil-atmosphere fluxes of nitrous oxide, nitric oxide, methane, and carbon dioxide. Gas fluxes were measured weekly for ten weeks following the treatment.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the relationship between induced root mortality and nitrous oxide flux from trenched versus control plots.
• Comparing soil-atmosphere flux responses for methane and carbon dioxide across different soil types (sand vs. clay).
• Examining weekly time-series trends in trace gas emissions over a ten-week experimental period.
• Investigating the short-term impact of soil fragmentation and trenching on greenhouse gas dynamics.

Strengths

• Provides specific average flux rates for N2O: 37.5 ng N cm-2 h-1 (clay trenched) and 4.7 ng N cm-2 h-1 (sand trenched).
• Data collection followed a controlled experimental design with weekly measurements over a defined ten-week period.
• The dataset's presence on multiple authoritative platforms (Data.gov, NASA Earthdata) signals its importance and curation.

Limitations

• Key structural details like row count, column names, and exact file size are unavailable from all sources.
• There is a significant conflict in the 'last updated' date: Data.gov lists 2026-03 13, while NASA Earthdata lists 2001-05-15.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' on Data.gov but is 'None' on NASA Earthdata.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Controlled field experiment using trenching and root exclusion screening to isolate soil blocks, with weekly gas flux measurements.

Time Range

Ten weeks following the trenching treatment.

Freshness

2026-03-13 00:58:54.616101

Geography

Tapajos National Forest, Brazil (tropical forest soils).