Volumetric soil water content data measured by time-domain reflectometry for 120 point locations within limestone cedar glades at Stones River National Battlefield near Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Description
This dataset contains data collected within limestone cedar glades at Stones River National Battlefield (STRI) near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. This dataset contains measurements of volumetric soil water content at certain quadrat locations (points) within 12 selected cedar glades. All soil water content measurements in this file were obtained using a portable time-domain reflectometry (TDR) unit (FieldScout TDR 300 Soil Moisture Meter; Spectrum Technologies, Inc., Plainfield, IL, USA) that was fitted with the shortest probe length, 3.8 centimeters (cm). Six measurements were obtained per quadrat, and the values present in the fields of this dataset represent the means of these six measurements. In some cases, equipment malfunction caused some missing data values; in these cases the values present in the fields represent means of at least three measurements per point. Missing measurements (either because fewer than 3 measurements were taken for a given point, or because a point was not sampled on a given day) are represented by the value -99999. This file contains observations only for those points that were candidates for TDR measurement, defined by having no exposed bedrock and at least 2 of 4 depth-to-bedrock measurements greater than 4 cm. Please note that this dataset can be used in conjunction with two associated datasets: STRI_glades_soil_Water_Content_OD.shp, which contains soil water content measurements obtained by gravimetric (oven-drying) analysis for points with insufficient soil depth for TDR measurement, and STRI_glades_soil_water_content_ALL.shp, which contains soil-water-content measurements obtained by both TDR and oven-drying methods wherein TDR measurements have been transformed to oven-drying-method equivalents using a calibration curve. For details on this calibration procedure to compare soil water content measurements obtained by the two methods, see the metadata section for the file STRI_glades_soil_water_content_ALL.shp.Detailed descriptions of experimental design, field data collection procedures, laboratory procedures, and data analysis are presented in Cartwright (2014).References:Cartwright, J. (2014). Soil ecology of a rock outcrop ecosystem: abiotic stresses, soil respiration, and microbial community profiles in limestone cedar glades. Ph.D. dissertation, Tennessee State University.Cofer, M., Walck, J., and Hidayati, S. (2008). Species richness and exotic species invasion in Middle Tennessee cedar glades in relation to abiotic and biotic factors. The Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society, 135(4), 540–553.