16S Soil Metagenome Dataset from a Retreating Glaciers Area in the High Tropical Andes Mountains

Glacier forefield environments have long acted as natural laboratories for understanding the establishment of ecological communities in newly available habitat. There is often a long lag in the initial colonization of plants in alpine ecosystems because of limited soil nutrients. However, there may be strong animal-plant facilitation mechanisms at play, where communal dung deposition by native herbivores creates nutrient hotspots and fuels more rapid plant establishment. These data describe soil metagenomes from an initial sample set collected from a retreating glaciers area in the high tropical Andes mountains and explore variabilities in elevation, soil age, and season. This initial set of samples is a critical precursor to a larger, ongoing multiomics analysis of this unique study site. Revealing unexplored processes underlying how ecological communities will keep pace with rapid climate change will enable future experimental and predictive modeling work, which can inform urgently needed stewardship of lands newly exposed by retreating ice.