Water quality, temperature, ash-free dry mass, photosynthetic activate radiation (PAR), and zooplankton data from a warming and DOC subsidy experiment, 2020 - 2021.

This dataset includes chlorophyll-a concentrations, periphyton biomass estimates, water quality measurements, and qualitative observations from a large-scale mesocosm experiment conducted in the Green Lakes Watershed, Colorado. The experiment was designed to test how earlier lake ice-off and increased dissolved organic material (DOM), associated with terrestrial plant encroachment in alpine watersheds, interactively influence aquatic food webs. In fall 2019, twenty 2600L “megacosms” were established at Sandy Corner (3300 m ASL; 40.042289, -105.584006), left to fill with snowmelt, and maintained throughout the 2020 open water season. The experiment followed a 2 × 2 randomized block design manipulating ice-off timing (via black vs. beige tank coloration) and DOM inputs (presence/absence of willow leaf packs), with five replicates per treatment. All tanks were seeded with sediments and zooplankton from both alpine and montane lakes (Green Lake 1 and Green Lake 4), and instrumented with thermistors recording surface and hypolimnion temperature every two hours year-round. Periphyton growth was monitored using clay tiles, sampled across five time points. Chlorophyll-a concentrations were extracted from filtered water samples and analyzed spectrophotometrically. Periphyton biomass was estimated via ash-free dry mass (AFDM) determinations, based on the mass lost on combustion of material scraped from tiles. Water quality was measured 1–2 times weekly using a YSI ProPlus multiprobe and Li-Cor quantum sensor, and snow/ice cover was qualitatively assessed monthly during winter.