Data related to the physiology, growth, and survival of balsam fir and northern white-cedar seedlings exposed to experimental droughts and floods

This publication contains data collected in a greenhouse experiment of drought and flood effects on northern white-cedar and balsam fir seedlings. To determine lethal drought and flood thresholds for each species, treatments were initiated in July 2021 using 205 3- to 4-year-old cedar and fir seedlings planted in containers in May 2021. Drought treatments were initiated by stopping irrigation and flood treatments were initiated by placing seedling containers in water. Cedar and fir seedlings were randomly assigned to one of 8 drought or flood treatment lengths (8 to 66 days or 8 to 53 days, respectively), or one of two replicates of controls. Measurements were made at start and end of the treatment season (2021) and recovery season (2022) and at each end of treatment (2021). Data are available in 7 datasets: 1) volumetric water content and midday water potential (vwc_wp.csv); 2) percent brown foliage (PBF_mortality); 3) seedling height and diameter (ht_diam.csv); 4) minimum epidermal conductance (gmin.csv); 5) evapotranspiration (evapotrans.csv); 6) paired average minimum midday water potential and final percent brown foliage (pbf_wp.csv); 7) paired xylem relative water content and midday water potential (rwc.csv).
Data were collected to determine how seedlings of fir and cedar were able to avoid, resist and recover from experimental drought and flood treatments of different lengths (8 to 66 days).
For more information about this study and these data, see Schulz et al. (2024).