Distinct N-cycling microbial communities contribute to microtopographic variation in soil N2O emissions

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of large precipitation events that flood soils and establish anoxic conditions that promote microbial denitrification, a predominant source of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O, a strong greenhouse gas). Denitrification may be favored within topographic depressions in otherwise flat fields that are prone to ponding, establishing “hotspots” of N2O emissions. The location of N2O hotspots may also depend on the distribution of soil microbial communities that are responsible for the production and consumption of N2O in soils. Yet, relating soil microbial community composition to N2O emissions remains challenging. To assess how spatial variation in soil microbial communities affects N2O emissions, we measured the community composition of active microorganisms using amplicon-based sequencing of cDNA generated from mRNA transcripts associated with N-cycling processes in response to experimentally flooding and draining soils in the lab. We a..., Please see the methods in the associated publication for detailed methods. Briefy, we collected soil cores from depressional and upslops soils within three agricultural fields in central Illinois. We used stable isotopes to emasure dentirifciation and ntirification derived N2O emissions as well as rates of dissimilary nitrate reductionto ammonium. We also sequenced mRNA transcrips from genes involved in various steps of dentirification and DNRA. We used these data to link microbial community composition to microbial process rates. , , # Data from: Distinct N-cycling microbial communities contribute to microtopographic variation in soil N2O emissions

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.xwdbrv1n4](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.xwdbrv1n4)

This dataset presents data from the publication entitled \"Distinct N-cycling microbial communities contribute to microtopographic variation in soil N2O emissions\". The dataset includes data on soil N2O emissions, soil microbial community composition, and soil properties presented in the manuscript. Please refer to the publication for methodologies used to generate these data and for the experimental design.

## Description of the data and file structure

File list (filenamesand brief description of all data files):

combined_data.csv: This file contains the cDNA transcript richness, initial soil properties, N transformation rates, and N2O emission data from the experiment described in the manuscript.

Variable_Descriptions.csv: This file includes the units and description of all variables...