Walker Branch Watershed: Temperature Response of Organic-Matter Decomposition in Headwater Stream

This data set reports the results of a field study investigating the effect of temperature on organic-matter decomposition in the West Fork of Walker Branch, a headwater stream on the Oak Ridge Reservation in east Tennessee. The goal of this project was to evaluate the effect of temperature on organic-matter decomposition in a stream ecosystem to better understand how carbon dynamics across terrestrial-aquatic carbon interfaces may change with warming. The West Fork is a spring-fed headwater stream and the spring inputs create a natural longitudinal temperature gradient. In winter, the upstream sites near the springs are warmer due to the spring input. In summer, the temperature gradient reverses and the upstream sites are cooler. One experiment examined the decomposition of senesced leaves from 3 tree species (red maple [Acer rubrum], tulip poplar [Liriodendron tulipifera], and white oak [Quercus alba]) along the temperature gradient in winter (December 2011 - March 2012). The second experiment examined the breakdown of cotton strips, a substrate of consistent quality (95% cellulose), along the temperature gradient with approximately month-long incubations over ~2 years (August 2011 to October 2013). This dataset contains six data files in comma separate (*.csv) format.