Soil metagenome from alpine elevational transect Targeted loci environmental

Soil samples were collected across a 1000 meter elevation gradient on three mountains in the Colorado Rockies to investigate how arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities respond to variation in phosphorus availability, pH, and organic carbon. We amplified the small subunit (SSU) rDNA region using NS31 AML2 primers to characterize AM fungal diversity. Sampling occurred weekly over five weeks during the 2018 growing season from six elevations (2700 - 3700 m) on each mountain. This dataset supports analyses of AM fungal community turnover, guild-level hyphal growth strategies, and the relationship between fungal diversity and phosphorus cycling under environmental gradients that simulate the effects of climate change.