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At least 919 records · Page 51

Radial–axial transport coordination enhances sugar translocation in the phloem vasculature of plants

Abstract Understanding mass transport of photosynthates in the phloem of plants is necessary for predicting plant carbon allocation, productivity, and responses to water and thermal stress. Several hypotheses about optimization of phloem structure and function and limitations of phloem transport under drought have been proposed and tested with models and anatomical data. However, the true impact of radial water exchange of phloem conduits with their surroundings on mass transport of photosynthates has not been addressed. Here, the physics of the Munch mechanism of sugar transport is re-evaluated to include local variations in viscosity resulting from the radial water exchange in two dimensions (axial and radial) using transient flow simulations. Model results show an increase in radial water exchange due to a decrease in sap viscosity leading to increased sugar front speed and axial mass transport across a wide range of phloem conduit lengths. This increase is around 40% for active loaders (e.g. crops) and around 20% for passive loaders (e.g. trees). Thus, sugar transport operates more efficiently than predicted by previous models that ignore these two effects. A faster front speed leads to higher phloem resiliency under drought because more sugar can be transported with a smaller pressure gradient.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Demographic analysis of invasible habitat fraction identifies context‐dependent roles of resource availability and biotic resistance in determining invasion success

Abstract Theories of plant invasions predict that plant communities should be more easily invaded when resources increase and/or competition decreases. We tested this with an experimentally introduced plant population by manipulating precipitation and resident community biomass. We used a spatially explicit demographic approach to develop a new population‐level metric of invasibility that quantifies the invasible habitat fraction (IHF) across the landscape. The existing community was essentially uninvasible (median IHF ≈ 0%), but experimental manipulations greatly increased the range of outcomes, with maximum observed IHF values over 50%. However, changes in invasibility were often context‐dependent, resulting in some outcomes that aligned with existing theory, and others that were not readily predicted. Moreover, variation in invasibility was often driven by specific sets of invader demographic vital rates. Removing competitors revealed the capacity for strong biotic resistance, but this interacted with precipitation such that little biotic resistance was detected under drought conditions. Adding precipitation typically had little positive effect on invasibility, and moderate drought relief led to relatively high invasibility. However, the latter was driven to a large extent by interactions with mammal herbivory that otherwise inhibited invasion in one year. Synthesis . Our findings show that interactions between abiotic and biotic factors, as well as legacy effects, can strongly mediate invasibility. This study also highlights the importance of incorporating spatial heterogeneity into population‐level assessments of invasion, as initial population declines do not necessarily indicate resistance to invasion.

Griffith, Alden B.↗

Save or spend? Diverging water‐use strategies of grasses and encroaching clonal shrubs

Abstract Shrub encroachment is one of the primary threats to mesic grasslands around the world. This dramatic shift in plant cover has the potential to alter ecosystem‐scale water budgets and responses to novel rainfall regimes. Understanding divergent water‐use strategies among encroaching shrubs and the grasses they replace is critical for predicting shifts in ecosystem‐scale water dynamics as a result of shrub encroachment, particularly if drought events become more frequent and/or severe in the future. In this study, we assessed how water‐use traits of a rapidly encroaching clonal shrub (Cornus drummondii) and a dominant C 4 grass (Andropogon gerardii) impact responses to changes in water availability in tallgrass prairie. We assessed intra‐annual change in depth of water uptake, turgor loss point and stomatal regulation in each species. Sampling took place at Konza Prairie Biological Station (northeastern KS, USA) during the 2021 and 2022 growing seasons. Cornus drummondiishifted from shallow to deep soil water sources across the 2021 and 2022 growing seasons. This plasticity in depth of water uptake facilitated a ‘wasteful’ water‐use strategy inC. drummondii, where stomatal conductance and transpiration rates continued to increase even when no further gain in photosynthetic rate occurred.A. gerardiiphotosynthetic rates and stomatal conductance were more variable through time and were more responsive to changes in leaf water potential thanC. drummondii. However, intra‐annual adjustment of turgor loss point was more pronounced inC. drummondii(Δπ TLP = −0.48 MPa ± 0.15 SD) than inA. gerardii(Δπ TLP = −0.29 MPa ± 0.19 SD). Synthesis. These results suggest thatC. drummondiiis highly resilient to changes in water availability in surface soils and will likely remain unaffected by future droughts unless they are severe enough to reduce the availability of deep soil water. Given that clonal shrubs are key invaders of grasslands world‐wide, increased leaf‐level water loss is expected to accelerate ecosystem‐level drying as clonal shrub encroachment proceeds in mesic grasslands.

Environmental Sciences & Ecology↗

Montane forest productivity across a semiarid climatic gradient

Abstract High‐elevation montane forests are disproportionately important to carbon sequestration in semiarid climates where low elevations are dry and characterized by low carbon density ecosystems. However, these ecosystems are increasingly threatened by climate change with seasonal implications for photosynthesis and forest growth. As a result, we leveraged eddy covariance data from six evergreen conifer forest sites in the semiarid western United States to extrapolate the status of carbon sequestration within a framework of projected warming and drying. At colder locations, the seasonal evolution of gross primary productivity (GPP) was characterized by a single broad maximum during the summer that corresponded to snow melt‐derived moisture and a transition from winter dormancy to spring activity. Conversely, winter dormancy was transient at warmer locations, and GPP was responsive to both winter and summer precipitation such that two distinct GPP maxima were separated by a period of foresummer drought. This resulted in a predictable sequence of primary limiting factors to GPP beginning with air temperature in winter and proceeding to moisture and leaf area during the summer. Due to counteracting winter (positive) and summer (negative) GPP responses to warming, leaf area index and moisture availability were the best predictors of annual GPP differences across sites. Overall, mean annual GPP was greatest at the warmest site due to persistent vegetation photosynthetic activity throughout the winter. These results indicate that the trajectory of this region's carbon sequestration will be sensitive to reduced or delayed summer precipitation, especially if coupled to snow drought and earlier soil moisture recession, but summer precipitation changes remain highly uncertain. Given the demonstrated potential for seasonally offsetting responses to warming, we project that decadal semiarid montane forest carbon sequestration will remain relatively stable in the absence of severe disturbance.

Knowles, John F.↗

Divergent species-specific impacts of whole ecosystem warming and elevated CO 2 on vegetation water relations in an ombrotrophic peatland

Boreal peatland forests have relatively low species diversity and thus impacts of climate change on one or more dominant species could shift ecosystem function. Despite abundant soil water availability, shallowly rooted vascular plants within peatlands may not be able to meet foliar demand for water under drought or heat events that increase vapor pressure deficits while reducing near surface water availability, although concurrent increases in atmospheric CO 2 could buffer resultant hydraulic stress. We assessed plant water relations of co-occurring shrub (primarily Rhododendron groenlandicum and Chamaedaphne calyculata) and tree (Picea mariana and Larix laricina) species prior to, and in response to whole ecosystem warming (0 to +9°C) and elevated CO 2 using 12.8-m diameter open-top enclosures installed within an ombrotrophic bog. Water relations (water potential [Ψ], turgor loss point, foliar and root hydraulic conductivity) were assessed prior to treatment initiation, then Ψ and peak sap flow (trees only) assessed after 1 or 2 years of treatments. Under the higher temperature treatments, L. laricina Ψ exceeded its turgor loss point, increased its peak sap flow, and was not able to recover Ψ overnight. In contrast, P. mariana operated below its turgor loss point and maintained constant Ψ and sap flow across warming treatments. Similarly, C. calyculata Ψ stress increased with temperature while R. groenlandicum Ψ remained at pretreatment levels. The more anisohydric behavior of L. laricina and C. calyculata may provide greater net C uptake with warming, while the more conservative P. mariana and R. groenlandicum maintained greater hydraulic safety. These latter species also responded to elevated CO 2 by reduced Ψ stress, which may also help limit hydraulic failure during periods of extreme drought or heat in the future. Along with Sphagnum moss, the species-specific responses of peatland vascular communities to drier or hotter conditions will shape boreal peatland composition and function in the future.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Tropical root responses to global changes: A synthesis

Tropical ecosystems face escalating global change. These shifts can disrupt tropical forests' carbon (C) balance and impact root dynamics. Since roots perform essential functions such as resource acquisition and tissue protection, root responses can inform about the strategies and vulnerabilities of ecosystems facing present and future global changes. However, root trait dynamics are poorly understood, especially in tropical ecosystems. We analyzed existing research on tropical root responses to key global change drivers: warming, drought, flooding, cyclones, nitrogen (N) deposition, elevated (e) CO 2 , and fires. Based on tree species- and community-level literature, we obtained 266 root trait observations from 93 studies across 24 tropical countries. We found differences in the proportion of root responsiveness to global change among different global change drivers but not among root categories. In particular, we observed that tropical root systems responded to warming and eCO 2 by increasing root biomass in species-scale studies. Drought increased the root: shoot ratio with no change in root biomass, indicating a decline in aboveground biomass. Despite N deposition being the most studied global change driver, it had some of the most variable effects on root characteristics, with few predictable responses. Episodic disturbances such as cyclones, fires, and flooding consistently resulted in a change in root trait expressions, with cyclones and fires increasing root production, potentially due to shifts in plant community and nutrient inputs, while flooding changed plant regulatory metabolisms due to low oxygen conditions. The data available to date clearly show that tropical forest root characteristics and dynamics are responding to global change, although in ways that are not always predictable. This synthesis indicates the need for replicated studies across root characteristics at species and community scales under different global change factors.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Sex ratio of Western Bluebirds ( Sialia mexicana ) is mediated by phenology and clutch size

Mothers may produce more of one sex to maximize their fitness if there are differences in the cost of producing each sex or there are differences in their relative reproductive value. Breeding date and clutch size are known to influence offspring sex ratios in birds through sex differences in dispersal, social behaviours, differential mortality and available food resources. We tested whether breeding date, clutch size and drought conditions influenced offspring sex ratios in a sexually size-monomorphic species, the Western Bluebird Sialia mexicana, by interrogating a 21-year dataset. After controlling for differential mortality, we found that hatch dates late in the breeding season were associated with the production of more females, suggesting that the value of producing males declines as the breeding season progresses. When clutch size was taken into account, small clutches yielded significantly more females late in the breeding season than in the early and middle parts of the breeding season, which produced significantly more males. Here, large clutches early in the season tended to produce more females, although this was not significant. Drought severity was not correlated with sex ratio adjustment. We propose and discuss several explanations for these patterns, including male offspring, but not female offspring, acting as helpers, increased female nestling provisioning late in the breeding season, differences in food abundance and egg-laying order. Future work will help to uncover the mechanisms leading to these patterns. Identifying patterns and mechanisms of sex ratio skew from long-term datasets is important for informing predictions regarding life-history trade-offs in wildlife populations.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Differential timing of gene expression and recruitment in independent origins of CAM in the Agavoideae (Asparagaceae)

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) photosynthesis has evolved repeatedly across the plant tree of life, however our understanding of the genetic convergence across independent origins remains hampered by the lack of comparative studies. Here, we explore gene expression profiles in eight species from the Agavoideae (Asparagaceae) encompassing three independent origins of CAM. Using comparative physiology and transcriptomics, we examined the variable modes of CAM in this subfamily and the changes in gene expression across time of day and between well watered and drought-stressed treatments. We further assessed gene expression and the molecular evolution of genes encoding phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PPC), an enzyme required for primary carbon fixation in CAM. Most time-of-day expression profiles are largely conserved across all eight species and suggest that large perturbations to the central clock are not required for CAM evolution. By contrast, transcriptional response to drought is highly lineage specific. Yucca and Beschorneria have CAM-like expression of PPC2 , a copy of PPC that has never been shown to be recruited for CAM in angiosperms. Together the physiological and transcriptomic comparison of closely related C 3 and CAM species reveals similar gene expression profiles, with the notable exception of differential recruitment of carboxylase enzymes for CAM function.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Integrating plant physiology into simulation of fire behavior and effects

Summary Wildfires are a global crisis, but current fire models fail to capture vegetation response to changing climate. With drought and elevated temperature increasing the importance of vegetation dynamics to fire behavior, and the advent of next generation models capable of capturing increasingly complex physical processes, we provide a renewed focus on representation of woody vegetation in fire models. Currently, the most advanced representations of fire behavior and biophysical fire effects are found in distinct classes of fine‐scale models and do not capture variation in live fuel (i.e. living plant) properties. We demonstrate that plant water and carbon dynamics, which influence combustion and heat transfer into the plant and often dictate plant survival, provide the mechanistic linkage between fire behavior and effects. Our conceptual framework linking remotely sensed estimates of plant water and carbon to fine‐scale models of fire behavior and effects could be a critical first step toward improving the fidelity of the coarse scale models that are now relied upon for global fire forecasting. This process‐based approach will be essential to capturing the influence of physiological responses to drought and warming on live fuel conditions, strengthening the science needed to guide fire managers in an uncertain future.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

The xylem of anisohydric Quercus alba L. is more vulnerable to embolism than isohydric codominants

Abstract The coordination of plant leaf water potential (Ψ L ) regulation and xylem vulnerability to embolism is fundamental for understanding the tradeoffs between carbon uptake and risk of hydraulic damage. There is a general consensus that trees with vulnerable xylem more conservatively regulate Ψ L than plants with resistant xylem. We evaluated if this paradigm applied to three important eastern US temperate tree species, Quercus alba L., Acer saccharum Marsh. and Liriodendron tulipifera L., by synthesizing 1600 Ψ L observations, 122 xylem embolism curves and xylem anatomical measurements across 10 forests spanning pronounced hydroclimatological gradients and ages. We found that, unexpectedly, the species with the most vulnerable xylem ( Q. alba ) regulated Ψ L less strictly than the other species. This relationship was found across all sites, such that coordination among traits was largely unaffected by climate and stand age. Quercus species are perceived to be among the most drought tolerant temperate US forest species; however, our results suggest their relatively loose Ψ L regulation in response to hydrologic stress occurs with a substantial hydraulic cost that may expose them to novel risks in a more drought‐prone future.

Benson, Michael C.↗

Seasonally Dependent Future Changes in the U.S. Midwest Hydroclimate and Extremes

This study investigates the responses of the hydroclimate and extremes in the U.S. Midwest to global warming, based on ensemble projections of phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project and the multimodel initial-condition large-ensemble simulations. The precipitation response features a seasonally dependent change with increased precipitation in April–May but reduced precipitation in July–August. In this work, the late-spring wetting is attributed to the enhanced low-level moisture-transporting southerlies, which are induced by regional sea level pressure anomalies linked to the poleward shift of the North American westerly jet (NAWJ). The late-summer drying is attributed to the weakened storm track, which is also linked to the poleward NAWJ shift. The seasonally dependent future changes of the Midwest precipitation are analogous to its climatological seasonal progression, which increases over late spring as the NAWJ approaches the Midwest and decreases over late summer as the NAWJ migrates away. In response to the mean precipitation changes, extremely wet late springs (April–May precipitation above the 99th percentile of the historical period) and extremely dry late summers (below the 1st percentile) will occur much more frequently, implying increased late-spring floods and late-summer droughts. Future warming in the Midwest is amplified in late summer due to the reduced precipitation. With amplified background warming and increased occurrence, future late-summer droughts will be more devastating. Our results highlight that, under a time-invariant poleward jet shift, opposite precipitation changes arise before and after the peak rainy month, leading to substantial increases in the subseasonal extremes. The severity of such climate impacts is obscured in projections of the rainy-season mean.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Data for The Stem Cell-Type Transcriptome of Bioenergy Sorghum Reveals the Spatial Regulation of Secondary Cell Wall Networks

Bioenergy sorghum is a low-input, drought-resilient, deep-rooting annual crop that has high biomass yield potential enabling the sustainable production of biofuels, biopower, and bioproducts. Bioenergy sorghum’s 4-5 m stems account for ~80% of the harvested biomass. Stems accumulate high levels of sucrose that could be used to synthesize bioethanol and useful biopolymers if information about stem cell-type gene expression and regulation was available to enable engineering. To obtain this information, Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) was used to isolate and collect transcriptome profiles from five major cell types that are present in stems of the sweet sorghum Wray. Transcriptome analysis identified genes with cell-type specific and cell-preferred expression patterns that reflect the distinct metabolic, transport, and regulatory functions of each cell type. Analysis of cell-type specific gene regulatory networks (GRNs) revealed that unique TF families contribute to distinct regulatory landscapes, where regulation is organized through various modes and identifiable network motifs. Cell-specific transcriptome data was combined with a stem developmental transcriptome dataset to identify the GRN that differentially activates the secondary cell wall (SCW) formation in stem xylem sclerenchyma and epidermal cells. The cell-type transcriptomic dataset provides a valuable source of information about the function of sorghum stem cell types and GRNs that will enable the engineering of bioenergy sorghum stems.

Software↗

Data for "Soil carbon dynamics during drying vs. rewetting: Importance of antecedent moisture conditions"

This dataset contains data used for the paper "Soil carbon dynamics during drying vs. rewetting: importance of antecedent moisture conditions". The Related References field will be updated with a full citation when available.Soil moisture influences soil carbon dynamics, including microbial growth and respiration. The response of such ‘soil respiration’ to moisture changes is generally assumed to be linear and reversible, i.e. to depend only on the current moisture state. Current models thus do not account for antecedent soil moisture conditions when determining soil respiration or the available substrate pool. We conducted a laboratory incubation to determine how the antecedent conditions of drought and flood influenced soil organic matter (SOM) chemistry, bioavailability, and respiration. We sampled soils from an upland coastal forest, Beaver Creek, WA USA, and subjected them to drying and rewetting treatments. For the drying treatment, field moist soils were saturated and then dried to 75, 50, 35, and 5 % saturation. In the rewetting treatment, field moist soils were air-dried and then rewet to 35, 50, 75, and 100 % saturation. We measured respiration and water extractable organic carbon (WEOC) concentrations and used 1H-NMR and FT-ICR-MS to characterize the WEOC pool across the treatments. The drying vs. wetting treatment strongly influenced SOM bioavailability, as rewet soils (with antecedent drought) had greater WEOC concentrations and respiration fluxes compared to the drying soils (with antecedent flood). In addition, air-dry soils had the highest WEOC concentrations, and the NMR-resolved peaks showed a strong contribution of protein groups in these soils. Both NMR and FT-ICR-MS analyses indicated increased contribution of complex aromatic groups/molecules in the rewet soils, compared to the drying soils. We suggest that drying introduced organic matter into the WEOC pool via desorption of aromatic molecules and/or by microbial cell lysis, and this stimulated microbial mineralization rates. Our work indicates that even short-term shifts in antecedent moisture conditions can strongly influence soil C dynamics at the core scale. The predictive uncertainties in current soil models may be reduced by a more accurate representation of soil water and C persistence that includes a mechanistic and quantitative understanding of the impact of antecedent moisture conditions.This dataset contains a compressed (.zip) archive of the data and R scripts used for this manuscript. The dataset includes files in .csv and .txt format, which can be accessed and processed using MS Excel or R. NMR data are provided as raw output data (accessed in Bruker TopSpin or MestreNova) as well as the MestreNova-processed files. This archive can also be accessed on GitHub at https://github.com/kaizadp/hysteresis_and_soil_carbon (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4432885).

1H-NMR↗

Data from: "Warming and the dependence of limber pine (Pinus flexilis) establishment on summer soil moisture within and above its current elevation range"

This data package contains data that were used for analysis in “Warming and the dependence of limber pine (Pinus flexilis) establishment on summer soil moisture within and above its current elevation range”, by Moyes et al. 2013. All data collection and field research were completed on Niwot Ridge, Colorado, USA.This data package contains nine comma-separated-values (.csv) files, one text (.txt) file, and two zipped seedling folders that were used for leaf area analysis. One zipped folder contains 468 .jpg photographs of seedlings, and the second contains 468 corresponding Image J-processed .jpg images that include silhouette leaf area values. .csv and .txt files can be opened using any compatible simple text-editor software such as TextEdit (Mac) and Notepad (Windows); .csv’s can also be opened using R and Microsoft Excel. Image files can be opened using Preview (Mac) and Photos (Windows). In addition, there are a total of 31 Microsoft Excel files: three .xlsx files, and 28 raw Li-Cor output .xls files. This data user’s guide is available in .pdf format, and can be opened using Adobe Acrobat Reader, or any other compatible file viewing software. Geospatial data showing field site locations are also included in the archive for use and reference. There are two geospatial formats in this archive: ESRI shapefiles (.shp) and keyhole markup-language (.kml) files. Both file types contain bounding box information, with the former being polygons, and the latter containing corner coordinates for each site. ESRI shapefiles can be opened using any geospatial software compatible with the file type (such as ESRI’s ArcGIS suite and QGIS), and .kml files are compatible with Google Earth and Google Maps.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Continued changes in climate are projected to alter the geographic distributions of plant species, in part by affecting where individuals can establish from seed. We tested the hypothesis that warming promotes uphill redistribution of subalpine tree populations by reducing cold limitation at high elevation and enhancing drought stress at low elevation. We seeded limber pine (Pinus flexilis) into plots with combinations of infrared heating and water addition treatments, at sites positioned in lower subalpine forest, the treeline ecotone, and alpine tundra. In 2010, first-year seedlings were assessed for physiological performance and survival over the snow-free growing season. Seedlings emerged in midsummer, about 5–8 weeks after snowmelt. Low temperature was not observed to limit seedling photosynthesis or respiration between emergence and October, and thus experimental warming did not appear to reduce cold limitation at high elevation. Instead, gas exchange and water potential from all sites indicated a prevailing effect of summer moisture stress on photosynthesis and carbon balance. Infrared heaters raised soil growing degree days (base 5 °C, p < 0.001) and August–September mean soil temperature (p < 0.001). Despite marked differences in vegetation cover and meteorological conditions across sites, volumetric soil moisture content (θ) at 5–10 cm below 0.16 and 0.08 m^3 m^(−3) consistently corresponded with moderate and severe indications of drought stress in midday stem water potential, stomatal conductance, photosynthesis, and respiration. Seedling survival was greater in watered plots than in heated plots (p = 0.01), and negatively related to soil growing degree days and duration of exposure to θ < 0.08 m^3 m^(−3) in a stepwise linear regression model (p < 0.0001). We concluded that seasonal moisture stress and high soil surface temperature imposed a strong limitation to limber pine seedling establishment across a broad elevation gradient, including at treeline, and that these limitations are likely to be enhanced by further climate warming.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Maintenance log:Amended file name error in Data User's Guide May 19 2022

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Storm and Annual Time Scale Hydrological Data for the Russian River Watershed 1996-2022

These files contains observed and simulated hydrological data (discharge, precipitation) that have been aggregated to the storm-event scale and to the annual time scale for the Russian River Watershed (RRW), California. Observed data are obtained from 12 different USGS hydrological stations located throughout the watershed, and discharge is simulated using the GR5H hourly hydrological model. Precipitation data are obtained from the NASA NLDAS NOAH Community Land Surface Model. All simulated and observed discharge are aggregated to the storm and annual time scales. We investigated changes in watershed hydrological conditions in the Russian River Watershed, a Mediterranean, drought prone, wildfire-adapted ecosystem, following eleven wildfires that occurred from 2017-2020. We ask two research questions: 1) How do interacting wildfire events, drought, and atmospheric rivers impact hydrological conditions of the watershed and in particular streamflow?, and 2) What percentage of new and/or cumulative wildfire disturbance is required to initiate hydrological change? We hypothesize that sub-watersheds of the RRW Mediterranean ecoregion have not burned beyond an intrinsic, and still unknown, threshold required to initiate change. Using a series of paired burned/unburned catchments nested within the larger watershed, we examined temporal and spatial patterns of pre-and-post wildfire water hydrology using a rainfall runoff hydrological model compared with data.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Plot and Tree Characteristics from the 2022-2023 field experiment at Game Ridge, Missoula County, Montana, USA

This dataset contains plot and study tree characteristics including identifiers, latitude and longitude data, tree heights, tree diameters, and distance between trees within a study plot. Data files and data dictionary(ies) are uploaded as .csv files and .xlsx files. The Users Guide is a .pdf file. Location data can be found in the Google Earth file GameRidge_SitePlotCoordinates.kmz.kml included here. These datasets were collected for Plant Carbohydrate Depletion, Mycorrhizal Networks, and Vulnerability to Drought: An Experimental Test in the Field. This experiment examined the interdependency between plant hydraulics and carbohydrate availability and sought to develop ways to incorporate interactions with below ground symbiotic organisms to better model and quantify forest response to drought. This environmental data was collected to provide context for the fungal community data and Pinus ponderosa physiological data.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Environmental monitoring data from the 2022-2023 field experiment at Game Ridge, Missoula County, Montana, USA

This dataset contains sensor data from programmed loggers as well as handheld moisture probes, including weather data, air and soil temperature, and soil volumetric water content. Data files and data dictionary(ies) are uploaded as .csv files. The Users Guide is a .pdf file. Location data can be found in the Google Earth file GameRidge_SitePlotCoordinates.kmz.kml included here. These datasets were collected for Plant Carbohydrate Depletion, Mycorrhizal Networks, and Vulnerability to Drought: An Experimental Test in the Field. This experiment examined the interdependency between plant hydraulics and carbohydrate availability and sought to develop ways to incorporate interactions with below ground symbiotic organisms to better model and quantify forest response to drought. This environmental data was collected to provide context for the fungal community data and Pinus ponderosa physiological data.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Metagenome-assembled genomes from topsoils along a hillslope water gradient across early snowmelt to late summer in East River, CO

Drought is changing the American Mountain West at unprecedented rates with unknown consequences to soil microbiome composition and function. As a part of LBNL Watershed Science Focus Area (SFA), we investigated shifts in microbial community and transcriptional activity on a subalpine conifer-meadow transition zone throughout the summer of 2023 as soil dried down. This work took place in Crested Butte, CO on Snodgrass mountain, using a proxy for drought conditions.Here we present metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs) for the bacterial and archaeal community at 0-10cm from three sites along a hillslope water gradient across five timepoints from early snowmelt to late summer. 42 metagenomes were sequenced at Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and can be found under the JGI GOLD (Genomes Online Database) sequencing project Gs0166660. Metagenomes were assembled through an inhouse pipeline (see methods), binned using four autobinners (concoct, maxbin2, metabat2, and vamb) and consolidated using dastool. The consolidated bins from all metagenomes were pooled, filtered by completeness (>70%) and contamination (<10%), and dereplicated at 95% ANI using drep. This dataset (1) a zip file of 157 MAGs (as fasta files, Gs0166660_bins_tar.gz), (2) sample metadata file with sample IGSNs (International Generic Sample Numbers) (samples.csv), (3) bounding box coordinates for the sampled locations (Gs0166660.kml), (4) metagenome assembly and coassembly metadata file listing IMG/M (Integrated Microbial Genomes/Metagenomes) metagenome accessions linking samples to metagenomes (EastRiver_Drought_ESSDive_Metadata.csv), (5) location metadata file (locations.csv), (6) file-level metadata file (flmd.csv) and (7) data dictionary (dd.csv) file.This work was supported by the Watershed Function Science Focus Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗