Considering agroecosystem multifunctionality is essential for designing sustainable cropping syst... more Considering agroecosystem multifunctionality is essential for designing sustainable cropping systems.
This data set includes meteorological and pedo-climatic data obtained from a study area in centra... more This data set includes meteorological and pedo-climatic data obtained from a study area in central Himalayas, Nepal. The study area is located in the Rolwaling valley along the Rolwaling Himal in the Gaurishankar Conservation Area (GCA) in the Dolakha district. In this region the upper treeline ecotone is located in a subtropical high-altitude alpine forest zone with strong differences in land cover on opposing valley slopes. South-facing slopes are traditionally highly shaped by anthropogenic practice and dominant tree species forming the treeline are <em>Juniperus</em> spp. On north-facing slopes dense forests are consisting primarily of <em>Betula utilis</em> and <em>Abies spectabilis</em> with <em>Rhododendron campanulatum</em>, <em>Sorbus microphylla</em>, <em>Acer caudatum</em> and <em>Prunus rufa</em> communities. On the upper end of the main study site the forests are locked with a wide <em>Rhododendron campanulatum</em> krummholz belt which is followed by <em>Rhododendron </em>spp. dwarf shrubs and alpine tundra in higher areas. Within the east-west extending valley eight automatic weather stations (AWS) were installed since April 2013. These were mounted on different slopes and positions stretching from around 3700m up to over 5000m a.s.l. In 2m above surface (sensor type in brackets) incoming solar radiation [Wm<sup>-</sup>²] (ONS-S-LIB-M003), air temperature [°C] (ONS-S-THB-M002) and relative humidity [%] (ONS-S-THB-M002), wind speed [ms<sup>-1</sup>] (ONS-S-WSB-M003) and wind direction [°] (ONS-S-WDA-M003) as well as precipitation [mm] (ONS-S-RGB-M002) are measured every 3min and logged every 15min. Four AWS are positioned in the main study site in the valley representing two altitudinal transects along different slope expositions in north-western and north-eastern directions. Additionally 34 pedo-climatic Koubachi combined soil temperature [°C] and soil moisture [pF] loggers were installed from April 2013 until September 2015 in four different altitudinal belts along the transects in 10cm depth. The [...]
Arid regions are defined as areas receiving only light and irregular precipitation, with rates fa... more Arid regions are defined as areas receiving only light and irregular precipitation, with rates falling below those of evaporation. Arid and semiarid regions represent 30 percent of the worlds terrestrial area. Data availability is a limiting factor when deriving scientific conclusions of studies on arid and semiarid regions, with insufficient data reducing the quality of results and leading to misguided decisions and policies. Ground-based rain gauges are traditionally used to measure precipitation by measuring an incremental mass of accumulated rainfall as a function of time. However, the existing network of rain gauges is far from satisfactory in resolving the spatiotemporal characteristics of precipitation. Although this knowledge gap is partly bridged via the use of other ground-based instruments (e.g., disdrometers, ground-based radars), sensors onboard satellites are currently the only instruments that can provide global and homogeneous precipitation measurements. Michaelides ...
The dataset was used to estimate the relevant range of spatial scales with multi-scale contextual... more The dataset was used to estimate the relevant range of spatial scales with multi-scale contextual spatial modelling. The modelled soil properties were cation exchange capacity, pH, and water content at field capacity. The soil quality indicator data was modelled and predicted with partial least squares regression models based on NIR and MIR spectroscopy (Pangaea DOI (doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.938522): “Soil spectroscopy data from 130 soil profiles in Lora del Rio, Andalusia, Spain”). The soil samples were taken in an area of 1000 km² around Lora del Rio, Andalusia, Spain, in the Sierra Morena mountain range (Palaeozoic granite, gneiss, and slate), at the Guadalquivir river flood plain (Pleistocene marl, calcarenite, coarse sand, and Holocene sands and loams), and southern tertiary terraces (coarse gravel and cobble with sands and loams). Present soil types according to USDA Soil Taxonomy are Alfisols, Entisols, Inceptisols, and Vertisols. The basis for the multi-scale terrain analysis was...
The data set was used to predict soil organic carbon (%), clay (<2 µm), silt (2-50 µm), and sa... more The data set was used to predict soil organic carbon (%), clay (<2 µm), silt (2-50 µm), and sand (50-2000 µm) content (%) and pH on samples that were not analysed with wet chemistry. Subsequently, cation exchange capacity (cmol kg⁻¹; doi:10.1016/j.catena.2017.07.002) and water content at field capacity (cm³ cm⁻³; doi:10.1111/ejss.12192) were calculated with the referenced pedo-transfer functions. The soil samples were taken in an area of 1000 km² around Lora del Rio, Andalusia, Spain, in the Sierra Morena mountain range (Palaeozoic granite, gneiss, and slate), at the Guadalquivir river flood plain (Pleistocene marl, calcarenite, coarse sand, and Holocene sands and loams), and southern tertiary terraces (coarse gravel and cobble with sands and loams). Present soil types according to USDA Soil Taxonomy are Alfisols, Entisols, Inceptisols, and Vertisols. The samples were taken at 130 stratified randomly located soil profiles in two weeks of October 2018. At each location up to fife ...
Soil bacteria play a fundamental role in pedogenesis. However, knowledge about both the impact of... more Soil bacteria play a fundamental role in pedogenesis. However, knowledge about both the impact of climate and slope aspects on microbial communities and the consequences of these items in pedogenesis is lacking. Therefore, soil-bacterial communities from four sites and two different aspects along the climate gradient of the Chilean Coastal Cordillera were investigated. Using a combination of microbiological and physicochemical methods, soils that developed in arid, semi-arid, mediterranean, and humid climates were analyzed. Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Chloroflexi, Verrucomicrobia, and Planctomycetes were found to increase in abundance from arid to humid climates, while Actinobacteria and Gemmatimonadetes decreased along the transect. Bacterial-community structure varied with climate and aspect and was influenced by pH, bulk density, plant-available phosphorus, clay, and total organic-matter content. Higher bacterial specialization was found in arid and humid climates and on the s...
Soil phosphorus (P) is essential for plant growth and influences biological processes. Determinin... more Soil phosphorus (P) is essential for plant growth and influences biological processes. Determining the amounts of available P to plants has been challenging, and many different approaches exist. The traditional Hedley sequential extraction method and its subsequent modification are applied to determine different soil P forms, which is critical for understanding its dynamics and availability. However, quantifying organic and inorganic P (Po & Pi) in different extracts is labor-intensive and rarely used with large sample numbers. As an alternative, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has been employed to determine different P fractions at reasonable costs in a short time. This study aimed to test whether the analysis of P fractions with NIRS is an appropriate method to disentangle the effects of P limitation on high-altitude grassland ecosystems, particularly with fertilizer amendments. We explored NIRS in soils from the grassland soil samples on the northern Tibetan Plateau. First, we ...
The sensitivity and response of climatic treelines in the Himalayas to climate change is still be... more The sensitivity and response of climatic treelines in the Himalayas to climate change is still being debated. Regeneration of tree species in the treeline ecotone is considered a sensitivity indicator and thus of great scientific interest. The aim of this study is to detect predictor variables for regeneration densities of the major tree species in central Himalayan treeline ecotones (Abies spectabilis, Betula utilis, Rhododendron campanulatum), analysing five development stages from seedling to mature tree. We applied negative binomial generalized linear models with predictors selected from a wide range of soil, topography, climate and stand characteristic variables. We found considerably varying predictors across the tree species and their stages of development. Soil conditions, topography and climate, as well as competing and facilitating tree species, had high predictive power for population densities. These predictors were clearly species- and development stage-specific. Predic...
Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an essential property of soil, and understanding its spatial pattern... more Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an essential property of soil, and understanding its spatial patterns is critical to understanding vegetation management, soil degradation, and environmental issues. This study applies a framework using remote sensing data and digital soil mapping techniques to examine the spatiotemporal dynamics of SOC for the Yazd-Ardakan Plain, Iran, from 1986 to 2016. Here, a conditioned Latin hypercube sampling method was used to select 201 sampling sites. A set of 37 environmental predictors were obtained from Landsat imagery taken in 1986, 1999, 2010 and 2016. Here, SOC was modeled for 2016 using the Random Forest (RF), support vector regression (SVR), and artificial neural networks (ANN) machine-learners by correlating environmental predictors with soil data. The results showed that RF yielded the highest accuracy (R2 = 0.53), compared to the other two learners. By performing a variable importance analysis of the RF model, normalized difference vegetation index, ...
Considering agroecosystem multifunctionality is essential for designing sustainable cropping syst... more Considering agroecosystem multifunctionality is essential for designing sustainable cropping systems.
This data set includes meteorological and pedo-climatic data obtained from a study area in centra... more This data set includes meteorological and pedo-climatic data obtained from a study area in central Himalayas, Nepal. The study area is located in the Rolwaling valley along the Rolwaling Himal in the Gaurishankar Conservation Area (GCA) in the Dolakha district. In this region the upper treeline ecotone is located in a subtropical high-altitude alpine forest zone with strong differences in land cover on opposing valley slopes. South-facing slopes are traditionally highly shaped by anthropogenic practice and dominant tree species forming the treeline are <em>Juniperus</em> spp. On north-facing slopes dense forests are consisting primarily of <em>Betula utilis</em> and <em>Abies spectabilis</em> with <em>Rhododendron campanulatum</em>, <em>Sorbus microphylla</em>, <em>Acer caudatum</em> and <em>Prunus rufa</em> communities. On the upper end of the main study site the forests are locked with a wide <em>Rhododendron campanulatum</em> krummholz belt which is followed by <em>Rhododendron </em>spp. dwarf shrubs and alpine tundra in higher areas. Within the east-west extending valley eight automatic weather stations (AWS) were installed since April 2013. These were mounted on different slopes and positions stretching from around 3700m up to over 5000m a.s.l. In 2m above surface (sensor type in brackets) incoming solar radiation [Wm<sup>-</sup>²] (ONS-S-LIB-M003), air temperature [°C] (ONS-S-THB-M002) and relative humidity [%] (ONS-S-THB-M002), wind speed [ms<sup>-1</sup>] (ONS-S-WSB-M003) and wind direction [°] (ONS-S-WDA-M003) as well as precipitation [mm] (ONS-S-RGB-M002) are measured every 3min and logged every 15min. Four AWS are positioned in the main study site in the valley representing two altitudinal transects along different slope expositions in north-western and north-eastern directions. Additionally 34 pedo-climatic Koubachi combined soil temperature [°C] and soil moisture [pF] loggers were installed from April 2013 until September 2015 in four different altitudinal belts along the transects in 10cm depth. The [...]
Arid regions are defined as areas receiving only light and irregular precipitation, with rates fa... more Arid regions are defined as areas receiving only light and irregular precipitation, with rates falling below those of evaporation. Arid and semiarid regions represent 30 percent of the worlds terrestrial area. Data availability is a limiting factor when deriving scientific conclusions of studies on arid and semiarid regions, with insufficient data reducing the quality of results and leading to misguided decisions and policies. Ground-based rain gauges are traditionally used to measure precipitation by measuring an incremental mass of accumulated rainfall as a function of time. However, the existing network of rain gauges is far from satisfactory in resolving the spatiotemporal characteristics of precipitation. Although this knowledge gap is partly bridged via the use of other ground-based instruments (e.g., disdrometers, ground-based radars), sensors onboard satellites are currently the only instruments that can provide global and homogeneous precipitation measurements. Michaelides ...
The dataset was used to estimate the relevant range of spatial scales with multi-scale contextual... more The dataset was used to estimate the relevant range of spatial scales with multi-scale contextual spatial modelling. The modelled soil properties were cation exchange capacity, pH, and water content at field capacity. The soil quality indicator data was modelled and predicted with partial least squares regression models based on NIR and MIR spectroscopy (Pangaea DOI (doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.938522): “Soil spectroscopy data from 130 soil profiles in Lora del Rio, Andalusia, Spain”). The soil samples were taken in an area of 1000 km² around Lora del Rio, Andalusia, Spain, in the Sierra Morena mountain range (Palaeozoic granite, gneiss, and slate), at the Guadalquivir river flood plain (Pleistocene marl, calcarenite, coarse sand, and Holocene sands and loams), and southern tertiary terraces (coarse gravel and cobble with sands and loams). Present soil types according to USDA Soil Taxonomy are Alfisols, Entisols, Inceptisols, and Vertisols. The basis for the multi-scale terrain analysis was...
The data set was used to predict soil organic carbon (%), clay (<2 µm), silt (2-50 µm), and sa... more The data set was used to predict soil organic carbon (%), clay (<2 µm), silt (2-50 µm), and sand (50-2000 µm) content (%) and pH on samples that were not analysed with wet chemistry. Subsequently, cation exchange capacity (cmol kg⁻¹; doi:10.1016/j.catena.2017.07.002) and water content at field capacity (cm³ cm⁻³; doi:10.1111/ejss.12192) were calculated with the referenced pedo-transfer functions. The soil samples were taken in an area of 1000 km² around Lora del Rio, Andalusia, Spain, in the Sierra Morena mountain range (Palaeozoic granite, gneiss, and slate), at the Guadalquivir river flood plain (Pleistocene marl, calcarenite, coarse sand, and Holocene sands and loams), and southern tertiary terraces (coarse gravel and cobble with sands and loams). Present soil types according to USDA Soil Taxonomy are Alfisols, Entisols, Inceptisols, and Vertisols. The samples were taken at 130 stratified randomly located soil profiles in two weeks of October 2018. At each location up to fife ...
Soil bacteria play a fundamental role in pedogenesis. However, knowledge about both the impact of... more Soil bacteria play a fundamental role in pedogenesis. However, knowledge about both the impact of climate and slope aspects on microbial communities and the consequences of these items in pedogenesis is lacking. Therefore, soil-bacterial communities from four sites and two different aspects along the climate gradient of the Chilean Coastal Cordillera were investigated. Using a combination of microbiological and physicochemical methods, soils that developed in arid, semi-arid, mediterranean, and humid climates were analyzed. Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Chloroflexi, Verrucomicrobia, and Planctomycetes were found to increase in abundance from arid to humid climates, while Actinobacteria and Gemmatimonadetes decreased along the transect. Bacterial-community structure varied with climate and aspect and was influenced by pH, bulk density, plant-available phosphorus, clay, and total organic-matter content. Higher bacterial specialization was found in arid and humid climates and on the s...
Soil phosphorus (P) is essential for plant growth and influences biological processes. Determinin... more Soil phosphorus (P) is essential for plant growth and influences biological processes. Determining the amounts of available P to plants has been challenging, and many different approaches exist. The traditional Hedley sequential extraction method and its subsequent modification are applied to determine different soil P forms, which is critical for understanding its dynamics and availability. However, quantifying organic and inorganic P (Po & Pi) in different extracts is labor-intensive and rarely used with large sample numbers. As an alternative, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has been employed to determine different P fractions at reasonable costs in a short time. This study aimed to test whether the analysis of P fractions with NIRS is an appropriate method to disentangle the effects of P limitation on high-altitude grassland ecosystems, particularly with fertilizer amendments. We explored NIRS in soils from the grassland soil samples on the northern Tibetan Plateau. First, we ...
The sensitivity and response of climatic treelines in the Himalayas to climate change is still be... more The sensitivity and response of climatic treelines in the Himalayas to climate change is still being debated. Regeneration of tree species in the treeline ecotone is considered a sensitivity indicator and thus of great scientific interest. The aim of this study is to detect predictor variables for regeneration densities of the major tree species in central Himalayan treeline ecotones (Abies spectabilis, Betula utilis, Rhododendron campanulatum), analysing five development stages from seedling to mature tree. We applied negative binomial generalized linear models with predictors selected from a wide range of soil, topography, climate and stand characteristic variables. We found considerably varying predictors across the tree species and their stages of development. Soil conditions, topography and climate, as well as competing and facilitating tree species, had high predictive power for population densities. These predictors were clearly species- and development stage-specific. Predic...
Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an essential property of soil, and understanding its spatial pattern... more Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an essential property of soil, and understanding its spatial patterns is critical to understanding vegetation management, soil degradation, and environmental issues. This study applies a framework using remote sensing data and digital soil mapping techniques to examine the spatiotemporal dynamics of SOC for the Yazd-Ardakan Plain, Iran, from 1986 to 2016. Here, a conditioned Latin hypercube sampling method was used to select 201 sampling sites. A set of 37 environmental predictors were obtained from Landsat imagery taken in 1986, 1999, 2010 and 2016. Here, SOC was modeled for 2016 using the Random Forest (RF), support vector regression (SVR), and artificial neural networks (ANN) machine-learners by correlating environmental predictors with soil data. The results showed that RF yielded the highest accuracy (R2 = 0.53), compared to the other two learners. By performing a variable importance analysis of the RF model, normalized difference vegetation index, ...
The study of migrations and the development of landscapes has a long history in archaeological re... more The study of migrations and the development of landscapes has a long history in archaeological re-search. However, this applies only to those landscapes with fertile soils and favoured climate condi-tions, often called 'Altsiedellandschaften' (“old-settled landscapes”). This is in contrast to low moun-tain ranges, which are often described as marginal areas because of their less fertile soils, high amounts of rainfall and steep slopes. These unfavoured areas have been neglected by archaeologists for decades since it was assumed that they were only visited sporadically in prehistory and a contin-uous settlement did not start before the 12th century AD when monasteries organized clearances of the forest. Furthermore, the archaeological visibility is often limited due to the poor preservation of the material remains and erosion caused superposition or removal of archaeological sites. To overcome the lack of systematic field work and to develop new theoretical models for the prehis-toric settlement of low mountain ranges, interdisciplinary approaches are necessary. Questions con-cerning the definition, perception and development of these landscapes are currently investigated with archaeological, archaeopedological and archaeobotanical methods within the framework of the research project “Favour – Disfavour? Development of resources in marginal areas” (CRC 1070 “ResourceCultures”). The study area is located in SW-Germany. An archaeological database was set up to investigate the settlement-history of this area in 2014. It contains ca. 2000 sites dating from the early Holocene to 1200 AD. The archaeological data as well as the spatial information from the sites will be compared with archaeopedological investigations of similar regions and colluvial deposits from several locations in the study area. The distribution and layering of these deposits provides valuable information on the intensity and duration of land use, which is often not adequately preserved in the archaeological record. Colluvial deposits also serve as archives for the local climate history. In addition pollen analysis is carried out in the study area. This complementary approach, which brings together the methods of archaeological research and natural sciences, offers new insights in the study of cultural processes and human behaviours. In our talk we would like to discuss how the correlation of these different data sets changes the knowledge of the prehistoric development of low mountain ranges.
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