Germination and early establishment of dryland grasses and shrubs on wind-eroded soils from the Jornada Basin LTER Scrape site, 2018-2019

In this dataset, we report germination and seedling growth of
contrasting perennial grass (Bouteloua eriopoda, Sporobolus
airoides, and Aristida purpurea) and shrub (Prosopis glandulosa,
Atriplex canescens, and Larrea tridentata) functional groups grown
on non-winnowed and winnowed soils collected from the Jornada Basin
LTER Scrape Site at the Jornada Experimental Range (JER) in southern
New Mexico, U.S.A. The soil physical and chemical properties of
winnowed and non-winnowed soils were evaluated, and soil water
retention curves were obtained for the two soil types. A controlled
pot experiment was conducted under the well-watered greenhouse
conditions at the University of Arizona campus, Tucson, AZ in 2018
and 2019 to test if topsoil "winnowing" by wind erosion
would differentially affect grass and shrub seedling establishment
to promote shrub recruitment over that of grass. Data include soil
water retention curves, soil chemistry, nutrients, and texture,
seedling germination, and seedling growth and biomass. This study is
complete and the data are published in the article below. Niu, F., Pierce, N. A., Archer, S. R., & Okin, G. S. (2021).
Germination and early establishment of dryland grasses and shrubs on
intact and wind-eroded soils under greenhouse conditions. Plant and
Soil, 1-16. DOI: 10.1007/s11104-021-05005-9