LAGOS - Lake nitrogen, phosphorus, stoichiometry, and geospatial data for a 17-state region of the U.S.

This dataset includes information about total nitrogen (TN)
concentrations, total phosphorus (TP) concentrations, TN:TP
stoichiometry, and 12 driver variables that might predict nutrient
concentrations and ratios. All observed values came from
LAGOS LIMNO v. 1.054.1 and
LAGOS GEO v. 1.03 (LAke multi-scaled GeOSpatial
and temporal database), an integrated database of lake ecosystems
(Soranno et al. 2015). LAGOS contains a complete
census of lakes greater than or equal to 4 ha with corresponding
geospatial information for a 17-state region of the U.S., and a subset
of the lakes has observational data on morphometry and chemistry.
Approximately 54 different sources of data were compiled for this
dataset and were mostly generated by government agencies (state,
federal, tribal) and universities. Here, we compiled chemistry data
from lakes with concurrent observations of TN and TP from the summer
stratified season (June 15-September 15) in the most recent 10 years
of data included in LAGOS LIMNO v. 1.054.1
(2002-2011). We report the median TN, TP and molar TN:TP values for
each lake, which was calculated as the grand median of each yearly
median value. We also include data for lake and landscape
characteristics that might be important controls on lake nutrients,
including: land use (agricultural, pasture, row crop, urban, forest),
nitrogen deposition, temperature, precipitation, hydrology (baseflow),
maximum depth, and the ratio of lake area to watershed area, which is
used to approximate residence time. These data were used to identify
drivers of lake nutrient stoichiometry at sub-continental and regional
scales (Collins et al, submitted). This research
was supported by the NSF Macrosystems Biology program (awards
EF-1065786 and EF-1065818) and by the NSF Postdoctoral Research
Fellowship in Biology (DBI-1401954).