The sequence of ammonia-oxidizing archaea amoA gene from biocrusts and biocrust-removal soils in Gurbantunggut Desert

The Gurbantunggut Desert is the second largest desert in China, biological soil crusts, or biocrusts, are widespread in the desert. They are soil surface communities consisted of cyanobacteria, algae, lichens, mosses, fungi, and bacteria, performing a suite of ecosystem functions.In October 2015, biocrust-removal manipulation was carried out on 4 sites with well-developed biocrusts to study the effects of biocrust-removal on ammonia-oxidizing microbes. The experimental design included two of biocrust and biocrust-removal treatments in each site, which is located approximately 30 m from each other. The sites were flat, with biocrusts evenly distributed, well developed (the main biocrust type is cyanobacterial-lichen crust) and not disturbed in the field before biocrust-removal treatment.This gene dataset is the result of high-throughput sequencing of amoA gene of ammonia-oxidizing archaea in biocrusts and biocrust-removal soils of Gurbantunggut Desert.