Surface soil temperature and water content from warming experiment located at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Colorado, 2015 to 2019

This data package consists of soil temperature and soil water content sensor data from the warming experiment near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. Data range is from summer 2015 to summer 2019, when the warming manipulation was terminated. The location of the warming experiment is in the upper montane life zone and consists of meadow vegetation with a mixture of sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), forb species (Erigeron speciosus, Helianthella quinquenervis, Lathyrus lanszwertii), and graminoid species (Festuca thurberi, Carex spps). Early studies showed that the heating treatment led to earlier snowmelt as well as warmer and drier surface soils, and changes in the functional composition of aboveground biomass favoring sagebrush over forb species (Harte and Shaw, 1995). These changes were mainly observed in the upper, naturally drier zone for the experimental plots. More recent observations of aboveground biomass, soil carbon, and microbial composition require concurrent information about the abiotic environment for interpretation and extrapolation to process-based models. This data package provides the plot- and zone-level abiotic context for the final years of the experiment and consists of csv files with hourly soil temperature (WM_ST.csv) and soil water content (WM_SWC.csv).

本数据集套件包含落基山生物实验室（Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory）周边增温实验的土壤温度与土壤含水量传感器监测数据。数据时间跨度为2015年夏季至2019年夏季，即增温操控实验终止之时。该增温实验设置于山地上部生物带，实验样地的植被为草甸群落，混合生长有三齿蒿（*Artemisia tridentata*）、非禾本科草本植物（含飞蓬*Erigeron speciosus*、向日葵状菊*Helianthella quinquenervis*、山黧豆*Lathyrus lanszwertii*）以及禾草类植物（含瑟伯羊茅*Festuca thurberi*、苔草属*Carex* spps）。早期研究表明，增温处理可加速积雪消融，同时使表层土壤温度升高、湿度降低，且地上生物量的功能组成发生显著改变，相较于非禾本科草本植物更有利于三齿蒿的定植与生长（Harte 与 Shaw，1995）。此类变化主要在实验样地的上层自然干旱区域被观测到。近年来针对地上生物量、土壤碳含量与微生物群落组成的相关研究，需要配套同步获取的非生物环境监测数据，方能实现对研究结果的科学解读以及向基于过程的生态模型进行外推。本数据集套件为该增温实验最后数年的研究提供了样地与分区尺度的非生物环境背景数据，包含两个逐小时分辨率的CSV文件：土壤温度数据（WM_ST.csv）与土壤含水量数据（WM_SWC.csv）。