Kruger National Park EBP carbon

Woody plant encroachment (WPE) is a global trend occurring in many biomes including savannas and accelerates with fire suppression. Since WPE can result in increased storage of soil organic carbon, fire management which may include fire suppression can enhance ecosystem carbon sequestration in savannas.
At our study site in Kruger National Park, South Africa, we used a long-term (~70-year) fire experiment to study the drivers and consequences of changes in woody (trees and shrubs) cover and soil organic carbon (C) sequestration. We surveyed four fire manipulation treatments replicated at eight locations within the park, annual high-intensity burn, triennial high (dry season) and low-intensity (wet season) burns and fire exclusion, to capture the range of fire management scenarios under consideration. Changes in woody cover were calculated over a period similar to the experiment’s duration (~80 years) using aerial photographs (1944–2018). Soils were analysed for soil organic C (SOC) and..., Soil samples were obtained under and away from the canopies of five large (> 6 m) Sclerocarya birrea trees on each plot in 2016. Under-canopy samples were taken halfway between the tree trunk and the edge of the canopy. Away from canopy samples were taken away (> 5 m) from tree canopies. After litter was scraped away, a trowel was used to sample to 5 cm and, below this depth, a 4 cm-diameter soil auger was used to sample from 5-30 cm (at increments of 5–10 cm, 10–20 cm, and 20–30 cm) and soils kept separate for each depth. The soil was dry sieved through a 2 mm sieve to remove all roots after which a bulk sample was taken to make one sample per canopy and one away from canopy per plot per depth (two vegetation types ´ 4 replicates (strings) ´ 4 fire treatments ´ canopy/away from canopy ´ 4 depths = 256 samples). After soil sampling, soil texture was analysed at Elsenburg Laboratory (Western Cape, South Africa) following the hydrometer method for soil particle analysis (Committee, ..., , # Kruger National Park EBP carbon

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Soil carbon for four treatments (annual Aug, triennial Aug, triennial Feb and no burn) at Pretoriuskop and Skukuza experimental burn plots in the Kruger National Park.

## Description of the data and file structure

* EBP location (Pretoriuskop or Skukuza)
* String (this is the repeat within the EBP location)
* Treatment is fire treatment applied (aAug\_1 is the annual burn in August, bAug\_3 is triennial burn in August (which is the end of the dry season), dnb stands for no burn and
* cFeb\_3 is a triennial burn every February, which is height of growing season)
* Tag is a unique qualifier that combined EBP, string and treatment
* D13C: is the soil delta 13C value
* Fire: is the fire received per period (so a measure of how often fire returns, e.g., 0.1 will be once in ten years)
* Fire\_int: I used the above Fire received to arbitrarily divided the interval into categories of return, either low or high, high was 0.8 or above
* Heights: should be...