Contrasting rhizosphere phosphorus-associated profiles and enzyme multifunctionality in two co-occurring desert Astragalus species across growth stages

This dataset contains the raw soil physicochemical, microbial biomass, and extracellular enzyme activity data used in the manuscript entitled “Contrasting rhizosphere phosphorus-associated profiles and enzyme multifunctionality in two co-occurring desert Astragalus species across growth stages”. Soil samples were collected from two co-occurring desert legume species, the annual Astragalus arpilobus and the perennial Astragalus flexus, in the Gurbantunggut Desert, Xinjiang, China. Sampling was conducted at two growth stages: rapid growth and maximum biomass. At each growth stage, three 30 m × 30 m plots were established in areas where both species were relatively evenly distributed, with plots separated by at least 50 m. Within each plot, three 5 m × 5 m quadrats were established. In each quadrat, three healthy individuals of each species were selected, and rhizosphere soils from the three individuals of the same species were combined into one quadrat-level composite rhizosphere sample. Adjacent bulk soil was collected at the same depth within the same quadrat and composited as the corresponding bulk soil sample. This design yielded nine quadrat-level composite replicates for each species at each growth stage. The dataset includes soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), total potassium (TK), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), ammonium nitrogen (NH4-N), nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N), available phosphorus (AP), available potassium (AK), microbial biomass carbon (MBC), microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN), pH, electrical conductivity (EC), and nine extracellular enzyme activities: sucrase (SC), beta-glucosidase (BG), peroxidase (POD), polyphenol oxidase (PPO), urease (UE), nitrate reductase (NR), N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase (NAG), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and phytase. The file legume_rhizosphere_raw_data_clean_utf8.csv contains 72 samples and 26 columns. Each row represents one quadrat-level composite soil sample. The accompanying README file provides the column definitions, sampling design summary, and quality-control notes.