Soil Bacterial Community Structure in Great Basin Desert Tree Islands

Thirty-eight woodland sites in the Great Basin Desert, UT, USA, were used to evaluate links between soil respiration, N mineralization, and bacterial community networks across tree island microsites. The dataset, authored by Sarah C. Peterson and last updated in 2026, likely contains measurements of soil characteristics, bacterial community composition, and predicted gene functions. It identifies distinct bacterial interactions and gene expression patterns beneath tree canopies compared to interspaces.

Use Cases

• Modeling bacterial co-occurrence networks based on community data from different microsites.
• Analyzing predicted functional gene abundance related to compound degradation based on soil metabolic state measurements.
• Comparing soil respiration and nitrogen mineralization rates based on data collected beneath tree canopies versus interspaces.
• Studying the impact of Juniperus and Pinus tree islands on bacterial community complexity based on network connection counts.

Strengths

• Data originates from a replicated field experiment across 38 sites, suggesting a structured sampling approach.
• Description reports a 5.2-times difference in bacterial network connections beneath canopies versus interspaces, providing a concrete comparative metric.
• Analysis includes 236 predicted functional genes for tree island communities and 66 for interspace communities, offering a quantitative functional profile.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data files include JPG and DOCX formats, suggesting the primary data may be embedded in documents rather than a clean, machine-readable table.

Provenance

Source

figshare, author Sarah C. Peterson.

Collection Method

Field experiment measuring soil characteristics, respiration, N mineralization, and bacterial communities across microsites.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-03 12:54:02; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Great Basin Desert, UT, USA.