Tree seedling survival and sediment salinity dataset

In September 2006 (austral spring), 480 seedlings of E. camaldulensis were planted in 24 plots on the banks of six ephemeral creeks, three of which were artificially flooded for 6–8 wk. Managed flooding was engineered by pumping water from the river into dry anabranch creeks that were dammed at their entrances using levee banks. Maximum flood depth among plots ranged from 0.4–0.7 m.<br>Two pairs of browsed and unbrowsed (1  2 m) plots were established along each creek. Browsing treatments (browsed or unbrowsed) were allocated randomly within each pair of plots, with all mammal herbivores being excluded by 1.3 m high steel fencing, with wire netting (3 cm mesh) attached.<br>One-year-old seedlings, grown from seed collected from a Murray River floodplain with similar climate and hydrological conditions (ca 80 km downstream from the study area), were obtained from a commercial nursery. Twenty seedlings were planted 40 cm apart in each plot. Seedling survival and height were measured eight times (spanning two austral summers) between October 2006 and June 2008 (0, 61, 151, 182, 273, 365, 578 and 609 d after planting).<br>In the austral spring of 2007, we collected three sediment cores from each plot at 20-30 cm below the surface, which corresponded to the lower seedling root zone. Sediment salinity was estimated by measuring electrical conductivity from the sediment samples using the 1:5 sediment/water paste extraction method (Rayment &amp; Higginson 1992).