Rock Mountain soil invertebrates, litter decomposition, and soil chemistry

These data were collected after the Rock Mountain fire of 2016, which occurred in the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia and the Nantahala National Forest in North Carolina. Twenty plots (12 meter radius) were established across a gradient of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) tree basal area. Ten plots were in burned areas, while ten were in unburned areas. These plots were established in four spatial blocks and four topographic positions. In each plot, we measured: 1) leaf litter mass loss from arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) or ECM trees during 2018-2021 using litterbags; 2) abundances of mesoinvertebrates extracted from litterbags collected in the spring of 2018; 3) soil ammonium concentrations from three soil depths (organic horizon, 0-10 centimeters, and 10-20 centimeters) in spring, summer, and fall of 2018; 4) abundances of soil- and litter- dwelling macroinvertebrates, summed across spring, summer, and fall of 2018; and 5) abundances of adult or subadult earthworms that could be identified to family.
These data were collected to understand how litter decomposition, soil chemistry, and soil invertebrate communities change across a gradient of ectomycorrhizal tree basal area, and to understand how wildfire affects these relationships.
For more information about this study and these data, see Taylor et al. (in review). The metadata for this data package was published on 07/12/2023, but the data were under embargo. On 04/29/2024, the embargo was lifted and data are now available.