Marsh soil nitrification, denitrification and greenhouse gas production rates, microbial communities, and explanatory variables collected from marshes in Terrebonne Bay, western Barataria Bay, and eastern Barataria Bay, Louisiana in July 2015

This dataset contains values for potential rates of nitrification and denitrification (denitrification enzyme assays) and rates of greenhouse gas (CO2, CH4, and N2O) production, abundances of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB), ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA), denitrifying bacteria (nirS), and methane-oxidizing bacteria (MOB) and soil properties collected from 12 marshes in Terrebonne Bay (TB), western Barataria Bay (WB), and eastern Barataria Bay (EB), Louisiana during July 2015. In each region, two pairs of oiled and unoiled marshes were sampled. At each site, 5-cm deep soil cores were collected at 2 replicate plots at each of 2 distances from the marsh edge (1 and 10m). Each sample was analyzed for potential nitrification rates, potential denitrification rates, and greenhouse gas (CO2, CH4, and N2O) production rates in soil slurries with AOA, AOB, nirS, with MOB abundances also being quantified. Additionally, a series of basic site characterizations were measured: soil properties, soil extractable nutrients, porewater, overlying water and adjacent bay water depth, temperature, salinity, specific conductance and nutrients, when available.