Dataset for abiotic and biotic responses to woody debris additions in restored old fields in a MBACI experiment
Experimental sites were established in the northern wheat-growing district of western Australia (Lat -29.66°, Long 116.18°) in August 2017, and monitored through to November 2019. We selected five planted old field sites with similar soil types and vegetation composition. Old fields were planted with York gum (Eucalyptus loxophleba Benth.) and dominant shrubs as understorey. At the time of sampling in 2017, vegetation age ranged from 8–13 years and distance from remnant measured 279 m (± 162 m).
We established two control and two treatment plots, each measuring 5 m x 5 m, in the interrows of five planted old field sites. Both treatments were randomly assigned to plots within each site. Between August and early November 2017, we measured a total of 30 response variables at each of the control and treatment plots. Response variables included soil physical and chemical properties (bulk density, penetration resistance, soil moisture, nitrogen and carbon pools), microbial biomass, decomposition rate of roiboos and green tea as per the standardized Tea Bag Index (TBI) protocol, herbaceous vegetation cover and richness, and ant abundance and richness, as well as abundance and richness of ant functional groups.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2019-12-01
- Date (Publication)
- 2022-06-10
- Date (Revision)
- 2024-12-16
- Edition
- 1
Identifier
Publisher
Author
Murdoch University - Parkhurst, Tina ()
90 South Street, Murdoch, Western Australia, 6150, Australia
Murdoch
Western Australia
6150
Australia
- Website
- https://www.tern.org.au/
- Purpose
- Ecological restoration of former agricultural land can improve soil condition, recover native vegetation, and provide fauna habitat. However, restoration benefits are often associated with time lags, as many attributes, such as leaf litter and coarse woody debris, need time to accumulate. Here we experimentally tested whether adding mulch and logs to restoration sites in semi-arid western Australia can accelerate restoration benefits. All sites had been cropped and then planted with native trees and shrubs (i.e., Eucalyptus, Melaleuca, Acacia spp.) 10 years prior to our experiment, to re-establish the original temperate eucalypt woodland vegetation community. We used a Multi-site Before-After / Control-Impact (MBACI) design to test the effects on 30 abiotic and biotic response variables over a period of two years.
- Credit
- We at TERN acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia, New Zealand and all nations. We honour their profound connections to land, water, biodiversity and culture and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
- Status
- Completed
Point of contact
Murdoch University - Parkhurst, Tina ()
90 South Street, Murdoch, Western Australia, 6150, Australia
90 South Street
Murdoch
Western Australia
6150
Australia
- Topic category
-
- Biota
- Environment
Extent
N
S
E
W
))
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2017-06-01 2019-11-30
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Not planned
- GCMD Science Keywords
- ANZSRC Fields of Research
- TERN Parameter Vocabulary
-
- ammonium in soil
- Milligram per Kilogram
- mass fraction of organic matter in soil
- Percent
- soil bulk density
- Gram per Cubic Centimeter
- soil nitrate
- Milligram per Kilogram
- ground cover - litter
- Percent
- ground cover - bare
- Percent
- species richness
- Number
- weed cover
- Percent
- ground cover - cwd
- Percent
- plant cover
- Percent
- relative species abundance
- Number
- animal count
- Number
- soil volumetric water content
- Percent
- soil organic carbon
- Percent
- soil organic matter
- Percent
- soil gravimetric water content
- Percent
- soil free amino acids
- Milligram per Kilogram
- soil dissolved organic carbon
- Milligram per Kilogram
- soil microbial biomass carbon
- Milligram per Kilogram
- tea bag index s factor
- Unitless
- tea bag index k facfor
- Year
- QUDT Units of Measure
- GCMD Horizontal Resolution Ranges
- GCMD Temporal Resolution Ranges
- Australian Plant Name Index
- Australian Faunal Directory
Resource constraints
- Use limitation
- The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license allows others to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works provided that they credit the original source and any other nominated parties. Details are provided at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- File name
- 88x31.png
- File description
- CCBy Logo from creativecommons.org
- File type
- png
- Title
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
- CC-BY
- Edition
- 4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- TERN services are provided on an "as-is" and "as available" basis. Users use any TERN services at their discretion and risk. They will be solely responsible for any damage or loss whatsoever that results from such use including use of any data obtained through TERN and any analysis performed using the TERN infrastructure. <br />Web links to and from external, third party websites should not be construed as implying any relationships with and/or endorsement of the external site or its content by TERN. <br /><br />Please advise any work or publications that use this data via the online form at https://www.tern.org.au/research-publications/#reporting
- Other constraints
- Please cite this dataset as {Author} ({PublicationYear}). {Title}. {Version, as appropriate}. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network. Dataset. {Identifier}.
Resource constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
Distribution Information
Distribution Information
Distribution Information
Distribution Information
Distribution Information
Distribution Information
Distribution Information
- Distribution format
-
Distributor
Distributor
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
Building 1019, 80 Meiers Rd, Indooroopilly, QLD, Australia, 4068
Indooroopilly
QLD
4068
Australia
- OnLine resource
- ro-crate-metadata.json
Data quality info
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Other
- Abiotic data was processed and analysed by professional soil laboratories (CSBP and CSIRO). All biotic data (flora and fauna) was processed and determined by taxonomic experts. All data were curated for error prior to statistical analysis and data publication.
Resource lineage
- Statement
- Experimental sites were established in the northern wheat-growing district of western Australia (Lat -29.66°, Long 116.18°) in August 2017, and monitored through to November 2019. We established two control and two treatment plots, each measuring 5 m x 5 m, in the interrows of five planted old field sites. Both treatments were randomly assigned to plots within each site. Between August and early November 2017, we measured a total of 30 response variables at each of the control and treatment plots. Response variables included soil physical and chemical properties (bulk density, penetration resistance, soil moisture, nitrogen and carbon pools), microbial biomass, decomposition rate of roiboos and green tea as per the standardized Tea Bag Index (TBI) protocol developed for comparison of litter decomposition rates across various ecosystems by Keuskamp, Dingemans, Lehtinen, Sarneel and Hefting (2013), herbaceous vegetation cover and richness, and ant abundance and richness, as well as abundance and richness of ant functional groups. Detailed sampling method descriptions are provided in the Supporting Information section. In November 2017, one treatment plot at each site was uniformly covered with 13 kg of freshly mulched York gum branches including leaves, and a second treatment plot with three York gum logs. The mulch and log application rate mimics leaf litter and fine and coarse woody debris cover of the intact York gum woodland remnants. York gum mulch was sourced from roadside tree lopping of a local shire and the logs were cut to size from recently fallen York gum branches. After two years, between August and November 2019, we re-measured all 30 response variables across the control and treatment plots
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Reference System Information
- Reference system identifier
- EPSG/EPSG:28354
- Reference system type
- Geodetic Geographic 2D
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/a7a7573c-abd5-418f-b9bc-6449b8058b5c
- Title
- TERN GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Point of contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Dataset
- Metadata linkage
-
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/a7a7573c-abd5-418f-b9bc-6449b8058b5c
Point-of-truth metadata URL
- Date info (Creation)
- 2022-06-02T00:00:00
- Date info (Revision)
- 2024-12-16T00:00:00
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO 19115-1:2014/AMD 1:2018 Geographic information - Metadata - Fundamentals
- Edition
- 1
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19115-3:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO/TS 19157-2:2016
- Edition
- 1.0
- Title
- Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-3:2016 and ISO 19157-2:2016
- Date (published)
- 2021
- Edition
- 1.0
Identifier
Overviews
Spatial extent
N
S
E
W
Provided by
Associated resources
Not available