Soil biotic and geochemical measurements from the Antarctic Specially Protected Area No. 131 (ASPA 131), McMurdo Dry Valleys Antarctica, December 2022

These data include soil biological properties (16S ASV community sequences, invertebrate community counts, ash-free dry mass, pigment concentrations), physical properties (location, gravimetric soil moisture, pH, electrical conductivity, remote detection of soil moisture change), chemical properties (dissolved inorganic nitrogen, extractable sulfate ions, extractable Cl ions) from soils collected within the Antarctic Specially Protected Area No. 131 (ASPA-131) surrounding Canada Stream in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. Collection sites were associated with a warming event that occurred on March 22, 2022, and include the following remotely-sensed categories: V - validation sites representing arid soils with little soil moisture and minimal detectable change in liquid water, S - significant sites that had a significant increase in liquid water, and N - nonsignificant sites that had detectable moisture but did not experience a significant increase in liquid water. These data aid in our understanding of how landscape heterogeneity and hydroclimate variability influence soil biota communities sensitive to changes in liquid water availability in a polar desert.