The effect of agricultural land use legacies on benthic bacterial communities in forested headwater streams of the Connecticut River watershed

This dataset is from the summer 2022 Long Island Sound Study intensive sampling campaign. These data were collected to analyze the role of land use legacies on water chemistry, sediment chemistry, and bacterial community. Sample sites are headwater streams with upstream land use that is either highly forested or highly agricultural. The highly forested sites are split into two categories, control sites and candidate sites. Control sites have been (or are believed to have been) forested for the past 70 years. Candidate sites have (or are believed to have) transitioned from agricultural land use in the past 70 years. Control and candidate sites were sampled along transects resulting in multiple samples per site as well as large woody debris (LWD) and canopy cover data. Agricultural sites were sampled only once and therefore lack the multiple samples, LWD, and canopy cover data associated with the transects. This dataset contains data collected via GIS, handheld probes, surface water samples, groundwater samples, and benthic sediment samples. From GIS, land use characterizations have been derived. Water chemistry was analyzed by running surface and groundwater samples in the Water Quality Analysis lab at UNH for a variety of constituents including TDN, DOC, anions, and silica. Sediment chemistry was analyzed by running benthic sediment samples in the lab for organic matter content and elemental analysis. 16S rRNA marker gene analysis was used to analyze benthic bacterial/archaeal communities in sediment samples.