Impact of Agricultural Tarping on Environmental Variables

Data associated with manuscript:  Differing short-term impacts of agricultural tarping on soil-dwelling and surface-active arthropods by Kinnebrew et al. 2023, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment.   

DOI: 10.1016/j.agee.2023.108542

This dataset details the environmental variables (soil moisture, weeds, and soil temperature) measured during the experiment.

Column name descriptions for EnvironmentalVariables_KinnebrewTarps.csv:

1. Date: Date of measurement 

2. Sampling: The time period in which measurement occurred. Tarps on: during tarping; Tarps off 1w: 1 week after tarp removal; Tarps off 3w: 3 weeks after tarp removal; Tarps off 5w: 5 weeks after tarp removal

3. Farm: The location of the plot – the three farms sampled at included Diggers’, Intervale Community Farm (ICF), and Catamount Farm (all located in Chittenden County, Vermont, USA)

4. Treatment: The type of tarp treatment applied. SilageTarp: silage (black plastic) tarp; ClearPlastic: clear plastic tarp; Control: no tarp 

5. PlotName: Unique plot identifier; the first three digits represent the farm on which the plot was located (ICF: ICF, Dig: Diggers’ Farm, Cat: Catamount Farm), the fourth digit represents the treatment (P: clear plastic, S: silage tarp, C: control), and the fifth digit represents the replicate number (1-6)

6. SoilMoistureAverage: Soil moisture, measured as volumetric soil water content %. Three points were taken in each plot and averaged to yield this number. 

7. WeedRich: Number of weed species present 

8. WeedShannon: Shannon’s diversity of weed community 

9. WeedCoverage: Total weed coverage (summed from cover of each individual weed species’ cover)

10. TempmeanB: Mean temperature (in Celsius) during tarping, 10 cm below the soil surface

11. TempmeanT: Mean temperature (in Celsius) during tarping, 1 cm below the soil surface

12. TempmaxB: Max temperature (in Celsius) during tarping, 10 cm below the soil surface

13. TempmaxT: Max temperature (in Celsius) during tarping, 1 cm below the soil surface