maintainer: Anita Risch

en: grassland exclusion invertebrates vertebrates ecosystem-coupling ecosystem-multifunctionality swiss-national-park subalpine grazing ecosystem-functions

en: Datafile

en:
ID: Plot ID composited of Fence & Treatment number (90 plots total)

Grassland: Name of the six subalpine grasslands where the exclosure setups were erected. In large grasslands (GRIM, MING, STAB), we established four hierarchical exclosure setups (two in short- and two in tall-grass vegetation), whereas in the small grasslands (BOTS, DADA, MARG) only one setup was erected per vegetation type. BOTS = Val dal Botsch, GRIM = Grimmels, MING = Val Mingér, STAB = Alp Stabelchod, DADA = Stabelchod da daint, MARG = Margunet

Fence: Number of exclosure setup (1 - 18). Note that uneven numbers (1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17) represent setups established on short-grass vegetation, even numbers (2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18) setups established in tall-grass vegetation
Vegetation	Vegetation type, 1 = short-grass vegetation, 2 = tall-grass vegetation; (9 replicate fences on each vegetation type)
Treatment	Progressive animal exclusion, numbers indicate which animals had access to the plot: 1 = Large/medium/small mammals, and invertebrates have access ("L/M/S/I"), 2 = Medium/small mammals, and invertebrates have access (“M/S/I”), 3 = Small mammals and invertebrates have access (“S/I”), 4 = Invertebrates have access (“I”), 5 = No animals have access (“None”)

Bulkden:	Fine fraction soil bulk density (g cm-3)

Soil.moist	: Soil moisture (%)

Soil.org.C: Rhizosphere soil C content (%)

pH: Soil pH

Nema.PC1: First principal component (PC1) of principal component analysis (PCA) of the soil nematode community composition

Nema.PC2: Second principal component (PC2) of principal component analysis (PCA) of the soil nematode community composition

Micro.PC1: 	First principal component (PC1) of principal component analysis (PCA) of the soil microbial community composition

Micro.PC2: Second principal component (PC2) of principal component analysis (PCA) of the soil microbial community composition

Abv.Inv.PC1: First principal component (PC1) of principal component analysis (PCA) of the aboveground-dwelling invertebrate community composition

Abv.Inv.PC2: Second principal component (PC2) of principal component analysis (PCA) of the aboveground-dwelling invertebrate community composition

Arthr.PC1: First principal component (PC1) of principal component analysis (PCA) of the soil arthropod community composition

Arthr.PC2: Second principal component (PC2) of principal component analysis (PCA) of the soil arthropod community composition

Plant.PC1: First principal component (PC1) of principal component analysis (PCA) of the plant community composition

Plant.PC2: Second principal component (PC2) of principal component analysis (PCA) of the plant community composition

Root.biomass: Root biomass (g m-2)

Micro.biomass	: Microbial biomass carbon (mg kg-1)

Plant.richness: Plant species richness

Plant.N: Plant tissue nitrogen content (%)

Soil.N.min: Soil net nitrogen mineralisation (kg ha-1 season)

Soil.resp: Soil carbon dioxide emissions (soil respiration; g m-2 h-1)

en:
This dataset contains all data on which the following publication below is based.

Paper Citation:
 > Risch AC, Ochoa-Hueso R, van der Putten WH, Bump JK, Busse MD, Frey B, Gwiazdowicz DJ, Page-Dumroese DS, Vandegehuchte ML, Zimmermann S, Schütz M. Size-dependent loss of aboveground animals differentially affects grassland ecosystem coupling and functions. 2018. Nature Communications 9: 3684. [doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-06105-4](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06105-4).

Please cite this paper together with the citation for the datafile.

#Methods
Study sites
The experimental exclosure setups were installed within the SNP (IUCN category Ia preserve; Dudley 2008), in south-eastern Switzerland. The park covers 172 km2 of forests and subalpine and alpine grasslands along with scattered rock outcrops and scree slopes. The entire area has been protected from human impact (no hunting, fishing, camping or off-trail hiking) since 1914. Large, fairly homogenous patches of short- and tall-grass vegetation, which originate from different historical management and grazing regimes, cover the park’s subalpine grasslands entirely. Short-grass vegetation developed in areas where cattle used to rest (nutrient input) prior to the park’s foundation (14th century to 1914) (Schütz and others 2003, 2006) and is dominated by lawn grass species such as Festuca rubra L., Briza media L. and Agrostis capillaris L. (Schütz and others 2003, 2006). Today, this vegetation type is intensively grazed by diverse vertebrate and invertebrate communities that inhabit the park and consume up to 60% of the available biomass (Risch and others 2013). Tall-grass vegetation developed where cattle formerly grazed, but did not rest, and is dominated by rather nutrient-poor tussocks of Carex sempervirens Vill. and Nardus stricta L. (Schütz and others 2003, 2006). This vegetation type receives considerably less grazing, with only roughly 20% of the biomass consumed (Risch and others 2013). Consequently, the two vegetation types together represent a long-term trajectory of changes in grazing regimes. Underlying bedrock of all grasslands is dolomite, which renders these grasslands rather poor in nutrients regardless of former and current land-use regimes.
Experimental design
To progressively exclude aboveground vertebrate and invertebrate animals, we established 18 size-selective exclosure setups (nine in short-grass, nine in tall-grass vegetation) distributed over six subalpine grasslands across the SNP (Risch and others 2013, 2015). Elevation differences of exclosure locations did not exceed 350 m (between 1975 and 2300 m a.s.l.). The exclosures were established immediately after snowmelt in spring 2009 and were left in place for five consecutive growing seasons (until end of 2013). They were, however, temporarily dismantled every fall (late October after first snowfall) to protect them from avalanches. They were re-established in the same location every spring immediately after snowmelt. Each size-selective exclosure setup consisted of five plots (2 x 3 m) that progressively excluded aboveground vertebrates and invertebrates from large to small. The plots are labelled according to the guilds that had access to them “L/M/S/I”, “M/S/I”, “S/I”, “I”, “None”; L = large mammals, M = medium mammals, S = small mammals, I = invertebrates, None = no animals had access. As we only had permission to have the experimental setup in place for five consecutive growing seasons, the experiment had to be completely dismantled in the late fall of 2013 and all material removed from the SNP.
Our exclosure design was aimed at excluding mammalian herbivores, but naturally also excluded the few medium and small mammalian predators, as well as the entire aboveground invertebrate food web. A total of 26 large to small mammal species can be found in the SNP, but large apex predators are missing (wolf, bear, lynx) . Reptiles, amphibians and birds are scarce to absent in the subalpine grasslands under study. Only two reptile species occur in the park and they are confined to rocky areas that warm up enough for them to survive. One frog species spawns in an isolated pond far from our grasslands. Only three bird species occasionally feed on the subalpine grasslands. Using game cameras (Moultrie 6MP Game Spy I-60 Infrared Digital Game Camera, Moultrie Feeders, Alabaster, AL, USA), we did observe that the medium- and small-sized mammals (marmot/hares and mice) were not afraid to enter the fences and feed on their designated plots. We never spotted reptiles, amphibians or birds on camera. We distinguished between 59 higher aboveground-dwelling invertebrate taxa that our size-selective exclosures excluded (see also methods for aboveground-dwelling invertebrates below).
The “L/M/S/I” plot (not fenced) was located at least 5 m from the 2.1 m tall and 7 x 9 m large main electrical fence that enclosed the other four plots. The bottom wire of this fence was mounted at 0.5 m height and was not electrified to enable safe access for medium and small mammals, while fencing out the large ones. Within each main fence, we randomly established four 2 x 3 m plots separated by 1-m wide walkways from one another and from the main fence line: 1) the “M/S/I” plots were unfenced, allowing access to all but the large mammals; 2) the “S/I” plots (10 x 10 cm electrical mesh fence) excluded all medium-sized mammals. Note that the bottom 10 cm of this fence remained non-electrified to enable safe access for small mammals; 3) the “I” plots (2 x 2 cm metal mesh fence) excluded all mammals. We double-folded the mesh at the bottom 50 cm to reduce the mesh size to smaller than 1 x 1 cm openings; and 4) the “None” plots were surrounded by a 1 m tall mosquito net (1.5 x 2 mm) to exclude all animals. The top of the plot was covered with a mosquito-meshed wooden frame mounted to the corner posts (roof). We treated these plots a few times with biocompatible insecticide (Clean kill original, Eco Belle GmbH, Waldshut-Tiengen, Germany) to remove insects that might have entered during data collection or that hatched from the soil, but amounts were negligible and did not impact soil moisture conditions within these plots.
To assess whether the design of the “None” exclosure (mesh and roof) affected the response variables within the plots and, therefore, influenced the results, we established an additional six “micro-climate control” exclosures (one in each of the six grasslands) (Risch and others 2013, 2015). These exclosures were built as the “None” exclosures but were open at the bottom (20 cm) of the 3-m side of the fence facing away from the prevailing wind direction to allow invertebrates to enter. A 20-cm high and 3-m long strip of metal mesh was used to block access to small mammals. Thus, this construction allowed a comparable micro-climate to the “None” plots, but also a comparable feeding pressure by invertebrates to the “I” plots. We compared various properties within these exclosures against one another to assess if our construction altered the conditions in the “None” plots. We showed that differences in plant (e.g., vegetation height, aboveground biomass) and soil properties (e.g., soil temperature, moisture) found between the “I” and the “None” treatments were not due to the construction of the “None” exclosure, but a function of animal exclusions, although the amount of UV light reaching the plant canopy was significantly reduced (Risch and others 2013).
Aboveground invertebrate sampling
Aboveground invertebrates were sampled with two different methods to capture both ground- and plant-dwelling organisms: 1) we randomly placed two pitfall traps (67 mm in diameter, covered with a roof) filled with 20% propylene glycol in one 1 x 1 m subplot of the 2 x 3 m treatment plots in spring 2013 (May) and emptied them every two weeks until late September 2013 (Vandegehuchte and others 2017b, 2018). A pitfall trap consisted of a plastic cylinder (13 cm depth, 6.75 cm diameter). Within each cylinder we placed a 100 ml plastic vial with outer diameter 6.70 cm and on top of the cylinder we placed a plastic funnel to guide the invertebrates into the vials. Each trap was cover with a cone-shaped and transparent plastic roof to protect the trap from rain (Vandegehuchte and others 2017b, 2018). Note that in the “None” plots only one trap was placed as control to check for effectiveness of the exclosure. 2) We vacuumed all invertebrates from a 60 x 60 cm area on another 1 x 1 m subplot with a suction sampler (Vortis, Burkhard manufacturing CO, Ltd., Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, UK) every month from June to September 2013 (Vandegehuchte and others 2017b, 2018). For this purpose, we quickly placed a square plastic frame (60 x 60 x 40 cm) with a closable mosquito mesh sleeve attached to the top edge into the plot from the outside. The suction sample was then inserted into through the sleeve and operated for 45 s to collect the invertebrates (Vandegehuchte and others 2017b, 2018).
We sorted the ≈100 000 individuals collected with both methods by hand and identified each individual morphologically to the lowest taxonomic level feasible (59 taxa, including orders, suborders, subfamilies, families; phylum for Mollusca). These taxa belonged to the following feeding types: 19 herbivores, 16 detritivores, 9 predators, 8 mixed feeders, 5 omnivores and 2 non-classified feeders (or not feeding as adults) (Vandegehuchte and others 2017b). We summed the numbers from the two pitfall traps and the suction sampling over the course of the 2013 season to represent the aboveground invertebrate abundance and community composition of a plot. Note: we did not specifically attempt to catch flying invertebrates with e.g., sticky traps, thus a few flying insects may have been missed with our vacuum sampling approach.
Sampling of plant properties
The vascular plant species composition was assessed at peak biomass every summer (July) by estimating the frequency of occurrence of each species with the pin count method in each plot (Frank and McNaughton 1990). A total of 172 taxa occurred within our 90 plots and we calculated plant species richness for each plot separately. We used the 2013 data in this study. Plant quality was assessed every year in July and September; here we use plant quality at the end of the experiment (September 2013). Two 10 x 100 cm wide strips of vegetation per plot were clipped, combined, dried at 65°C, and ground (Pulverisette 16, Fritsch, Idar-Oberstein, Germany) to pass through a 0.5 mm sieve. Twenty randomly selected samples across all treatments were analysed for N (Leco TruSpec Analyser, Leco, St. Joseph, Michigan, USA) (Vandegehuchte and others 2015). Nitrogen concentrations of the other samples were then estimated from models established for the experiment and the entire SNP relating Fourier transform-near infrared reflectance (FT-NIR) spectra to the measured values of N using a multi-purpose FT-NIR spectrometer (Bruker Optics, Fällanden, Switzerland) (Vandegehuchte and others 2015). Root biomass was sampled every fall by collecting five 2.2 cm diameter x 10 cm deep soil samples (Giddings Machine Company, Windsor, CO, USA) per plot (450 samples year-1). The samples were dried at 30 °C and roots were sorted from the sample by hand. We sorted each sample for 1 h which allowed to retrieve over 90% of all roots present in the samples (Risch and others 2013). The roots were then dried at 65 °C for 48 and weighed to the nearest mg. We averaged the values per plot and used the 2013 data only in this study.
Sampling of edaphic communities
In 2009, 2010, and 2011 we collected three composited soil samples (5 cm diameter x 10 cm depth; AMS Samplers, American Falls, ID, USA) and assessed bacterial community structure using T-RFLP profiling (Liu and others 1997; Blackwood and others 2003; Hodel and others 2014). We detected a total of 89 operational taxonomic units (OTUs). These values are in accordance with other studies reporting OTU richness (Wirthner and others 2011; Zumsteg and others 2012; Meola and others 2014) using T-RFLP profiling, a method that detects the most abundant, and thus likely, the most relevant, taxa. We averaged the data over the three years of collections for our calculations. Microbial biomass carbon (MBC) was determined with the substrate-induced method (Anderson and Domsch 1978) every fall (September) between 2009 and 2013 by collecting three mineral soil samples (5 cm diameter × 10 cm mineral soil core, AMS Samplers, American Falls, ID, USA). The three samples were combined (90 samples for each sampling year), immediately put on ice, taken to the laboratory, passed through a 2-mm sieve and stored at 4°C. Again, we only used the 2013 data in this study.
Soil samples (5 cm diameter x 10 cm depth) to extract soil arthropods were collected in June, July, and August 2011 with a soil corer lined with a plastic sleeve to ensure an undisturbed sample (total of 270 samples). The plastic line core was immediately sealed on both ends using cling film and put into a cooler. All plots were sampled within three days and the extraction of arthropods started the evening of the sampling day using a high-gradient Tullgren funnel apparatus (Crossley and Blair 1991; Vandegehuchte and others 2015). Samples were kept in the extractor for four days and the soil arthropods were collected in 95% ethanol. All individuals were counted and each individual was identified morphologically to the lowest level feasible [76 taxa, including orders, suborders, subfamilies, families (Protura, Thysanoptera, Aphidina, Psylina, Coleoptera, Brachycera, Nematocera, Auchenorryncha, Heteroptera, Formicidae); sub-phylum for Myriapoda, for Acari and Collembola also including morpho-species). Note that we also included larval stages (nine of the 76 taxa) (Vandegehuchte and others 2015). All data were summed over the season. A detailed species list for mites and collembolans is published (Vandegehuchte and others 2017a) [https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118679.s001]. Earthworms are rare in the SNP and therefore were not included. We collected eight random 2.2 cm diameter x 10 cm deep soil cores from each plot in September 2013 to determine the soil nematode community composition. The samples were mixed and the nematodes were extracted from 100 ml of fresh soil using Oostenbrink elutriators (Oostenbrink 1960). All nematodes in a 1 ml of the 10 ml extract were counted, a minimum of 150 individuals sample-1 were identified to genus or family level using (Bongers 1988), the numbers of all nematodes were extrapolated to the entire sample and expressed for a 100 g dry sample. In total we identified 63 genus or family levels (Vandegehuchte and others 2015). The list of all the nematodes found is published (Vandegehuchte and others 2015) [http://www.oikosjournal.org/appendix/oik-03341] or DOI: [doi: 10.1111/oik.03341].
We are aware that sampling soil microbes from 2009 to 2011 and soil arthropods in 2011 was not ideal, but we are positive that this does not bias the results. Most of the parameters measured in our experiment either already showed a treatment response after the first growing season (e.g., plant biomass) or did not respond over the entire time experiment (e.g., microbial biomass C). The microbial community composition (2009 – 2011) was highly influenced by inter-annual differences in temperature and precipitation, but did not differ between treatments or vegetation types (Hodel and others 2014). We therefore felt comfortable using the 2009 through 2011 data for describing the soil microbial community in our experimental treatments. Similarly, we are positive that our soil arthropod data are representative. We did assess soil arthropods in August 2012 and found no differences to the August 2011 data. However, we did not feel comfortable combining the 2011 June, July, August data with only August data for 2012 for our analyses.
Sampling of soil properties
We collected three soil samples (5 cm diameter x 10 cm depth) in each plot in September 2013 after removing the vegetation. First, we collected the top layer of mineral soil rich in organic matter, the surface organic layer or rhizosphere, typically 1 to 3 cm in depth with a soil corer (AMS Samples, American Falls, Idaho, USA). Second, we collected a 10 cm mineral soil core beneath this surface layer. The cores for each layer were composited, dried at 65 °C for 48 h and fine-ground to pass a 0.5 mm screen. We then analysed all samples for total C using a Leco TruSpec Analyser (Leco, St. Joseph, Michigan, USA). Mineral soil pH was measured potentiometrically in 1:2 soil:CaCl2 solution with an equilibration time of 30 min.
Soil net N mineralisation was assessed during the 2013 growing season (Risch and others 2015). For this purpose, we randomly collected a 5 cm diameter x10 cm deep soil sample with a soil corer (AMS Samples, American Falls, Idaho, USA) after clipping the vegetation in June 2013. After weighing and sieving (4 mm mesh) the soil, we extracted a 20 g subsample in 1 mol l-1 KCl for 1.5 h on an end-over-end shaker and thereafter filtered it through ashless folded filter paper (DF 5895 150, ALBET LabScience, Hahnenmühle FineArt GmbH, Dassel, Germany). From these filtrates NO3- concentrations were measured colorimetrically (Norman and Stucki 1981) and NH4+with flow injection analysis (FIAS 300, Perkin Elmer, Waltham Massachusetts, USA) (Risch and others 2015). We dried the rest of the sample 105 °C to constant mass to determine fine,fraction bulk density. A second soil sample was collected within each plot in June 2013 with a corer lined with a 5 x 13 cm aluminium cylinder. The corer was driven 11.5 cm deep into the soil so that the top 1.5 cm of the cylinder remained empty. Into this space we placed a polyester bag (250 µm) filled an ion-exchanger resin to capture the incoming N. The bag was filled with a 1:1 mixture of acidic and alkaline exchanger resin (ion-exchanger I KA/ion exchanger IIIAA, Merck AG, Darmstadt, Germany). We then removed 1.5 cm soil at the bottom of the cylinder and placed a second resin exchanger bag into this space to capture the N leached from the soil column. To assure that the exchange resin was saturated with H+ and Cl- prior to filling the bags, the mixture was stirred with 1.2 ml l-1 HCl for 1 h and then rinsed with demineralized water until the electrical conductivity of the water reached 5 µm cm-1. The cylinder with the resin bags in place was reinserted into the soil with the top flush to the soil surface and incubated for three months. We recollected the cylinders in September 2013. Each resin bag and 20 g of sieved soil (4 mm mesh) from each cylinder were then separately extracted with KCl and NO3- and NH4+ concentrations were measured. Nitrate and NH4+ concentrations of all samples were then converted to a content basis by multiplying their values with fine fraction bulk density. Net N mineralisation was thereafter calculated as the difference between the N content of the samples collected at the end of the three-month incubation (including the N extracted from the bottom resin bag) and the N content at the beginning of the incubation (Risch and others 2015).
Soil CO2 emissions were measured every two weeks between 0900 and 1700 hrs from early May through late September 2013 with a PP-Systems SRC-1 soil respiration chamber (15 cm high, 10 cm diameter; closed circuit) attached to a PP-Systems EGM-4 infrared gas analyser (PP-Systems, Amesbury, MA, USA) on two locations per plot (Risch and others 2013). The chamber was placed on randomly placed, permanently installed PVC collars (10 cm diameter) driven 5 cm into the soil at the beginning of the study (Risch and others 2013). Freshly germinated plants growing within the collars were removed prior to each measurement to avoid measuring plant respiration or photosynthesis. The two measurements collected per plot and sampling date were averaged.
Soil moisture (with time domain reflectometry; Field-Scout TDR-100, Spectrum Technologies, Plainfield, Illionois, USA) and temperature (with a waterproof digital pocket thermometer; Barnstead International, Dubuque, Iowa, USA) were measured at five random locations per plot every two weeks during the growing seasons during the experiment for the 0 to 10 cm depth (Risch and others 2013, 2015). As soil moisture and soil temperature were highly negatively correlated (Risch and others 2013), we only used soil moisture for this study. We used plot-level averages of all values available to capture soil moisture variability during the five years of the experiment. The results remained unchanged when we only used soil moisture from the 2013 growing season.
Numeral calculations and statistical analyses
Ecosystem coupling. We conducted principal component analyses (PCAs; unscaled) at the complete dataset level using the abundances of each taxonomical entity to describe each of the five different communities used in this study: aboveground-dwelling invertebrates, vascular plants, soil microorganisms, soil arthropods and soil nematodes. We retained the first two components (PCA axis 1 and PCA axis 2) of each analysis as we found them to adequately represent the temporal and spatial variability of our 90 treatment plots in previous studies55,67. Together they explained a total of 71.70% of the variation for aboveground invertebrates, 44.36% for plants, 44.85% for soil microorganisms, 61.85% for soil arthropods and 77.19% for soil nematodes. In addition, we used soil pH and soil organic C content as a proxy for soil chemical properties, soil bulk density as a proxy for soil physical properties and soil moisture (negatively correlated with soil temperature) as a proxy for soil micro-climatic conditions for an overall total of fourteen constituents.
We calculated ecosystem coupling9 for each exclosure treatment within each vegetation type (i.e., 2  5 treatment combinations in total) as an integrated measure of pairwise ecological interactions between ecosystem constituents representing ecological communities and the soil abiotic environment. These ecological interactions are defined by non-parametric Spearman rank correlation analyses between two constituents, excluding interactions involving two abiotic constituents (e.g., soil pH vs. soil moisture) and interactions between the first (PC1) and second (PC2) component of each community type, as these are orthogonal by definition. Interactions between abiotic constituents were excluded from the analyses because the focus of our study was on communities and how they interact with one another and their surrounding environment; therefore, including abiotic-abiotic interactions was not of interest here. Given that the effectiveness of our experimental design resulted in that no community composition data of aboveground-dwelling invertebrates was available for the “None” plots (all animals excluded), only thirteen instead of fourteen constituents were included in the ecosystem coupling calculations for this treatment. The complete absence of aboveground invertebrates represents the most extreme case of disturbance between aboveground animal communities and the rest of the ecosystem constituents. This may have resulted in a slight overestimation of ecosystem coupling for these plots.
	Average ecosystem coupling was calculated as follows:
Ecosystem coupling=
where Xi is the absolute Coupling was calculated value of the Spearman’s rho coefficient of the ith correlation for each treatment within each vegetation type (i.e., based on nine replicates each), considering and n is the number of pairwise comparisons considered (n = a total of 80; interactions (56 in the case of the “None” treatment). We considered a total of 40 biotic-biotic interactions (i.e., concerning two community-level principal components such as plants and microbes; 24 in the case of the “None” treatment) and 40 abiotic-biotic (i.e., concerning one community-level principal component and one abiotic factor, e.g., plant community and soil properties; 32 in the case of the “None” treatment).	Coupling was calculated for each treatment within each vegetation type (i.e., based on nine replicates each), considering a total of 80 interactions (56 in the case of the “None” treatment). We considered a total of 40 biotic-biotic interactions (i.e., concerning two community-level principal components such as plants and microbes; 24 in the case of the “None” treatment) and 40 abiotic-biotic (i.e., concerning one community-level principal component and one abiotic factor, e.g., plant community and soil properties; 32 in the case of the “None” treatment).
To establish whether constituents were significantly and positively coupled within treatments (i.e., the average of their correlation coefficients were greater than in a null model where correlation only happens by chance), we calculated one-tailed p-values based on permutation tests with 999 permutations.

We considered six ecosystem functions and process rates commonly used to assess ecosystem functioning (Meyer and others 2015; Manning and others 2018). Plant N content represents a measure of forage quality, while plant richness has been shown to stabilise biomass production, thus allowing the system to respond to changes in herbivory. Soil net N mineralisation, soil respiration, root biomass, and microbial biomass represent fluxes or stocks of energy. For all functions and processes higher values represent higher functioning (Manning and others 2018). All these variables were measured in the last year of the experiment (2013). We then quantified ecosystem multifunctionality using the multiple threshold approach (Byrnes and others 2014; Manning and others 2018), which considers the number of functions that are above a certain threshold, over a series of threshold values (typically 10-99%) that are defined based on the maximum value of each function. We weighted all our functions equally for these calculations (Manning and others 2018). The number of functions in a plot with values higher than a given threshold value for the respective function is summed up. The sum represents ecosystem multifunctionality for that plot. Given that choosing any particular threshold as a measure of ecosystem multifunctionality is arbitrary, we calculated the average of thresholds from 10-90% (in 10% intervals) as a more integrated representation of ecosystem multifunctionality.
We used Pearson correlations to explore the relationships between ecosystem coupling (all interactions, biotic-biotic interactions, abiotic-biotic interactions involving above- and belowground constituents, and all interactions, biotic-biotic interactions, abiotic-biotic interactions involving belowground constituents only) and ecosystem multifunctionality by calculating the slopes of all relationships between ecosystem coupling and multifunctionality for all thresholds between 10 and 99%. We also related ecosystem coupling with the average of multifunctionality at thresholds between 30-80% as explained before and considered this correlation as a robust indication of the type of association between these two variables. In addition, we explored the relationships between ecosystem coupling (all interactions, biotic-biotic interactions, abiotic-biotic interactions involving above- and belowground constituents, and all interactions, biotic-biotic interactions, abiotic-biotic interactions involving belowground constituents only) and individual ecosystem functions. The effects of exclosures and vegetation type on individual functions and multifunctionality were evaluated using linear mixed effects models ('lme' function of the nlme package), with exclosure and vegetation type as fixed effects and fence as a random factor. All statistical analyses and numerical calculations were done in R version 3.4.0 (R Core Team 2016).

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- R Core Team. 2016. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing
- Risch AC, Haynes AG, Busse MD, Filli F, Schütz M. 2013. The response of soil CO2 fluxes to progressively excluding vertebrate and invertebrate herbivores depends on ecosystem type. Ecosystems 16:1192–202.
- Risch AC, Schütz M, Vandegehuchte ML, Van Der Putten WH, Duyts H, Raschein U, Gwiazdowicz DJ, Busse MD, Page-Dumroese DS, Zimmermann S. 2015. Aboveground vertebrate and invertebrate herbivore impact on net N mineralization in subalpine grasslands. Ecology 96:3312–22.
- Schütz M, Risch AC, Achermann G, Thiel-Egenter C, Page-Dumroese DS, Jurgensen MF, Edwards PJ. 2006. Phosphorus translocation by red deer on a subalpine grassland in the Central European Alps. Ecosystems 9:624–633.
- Schütz M, Risch AC, Leuzinger E, Krüsi BO, Achermann G. 2003. Impact of herbivory by red deer (Cervus elaphus L.) on patterns and processes in subalpine grasslands in the Swiss National Park. For Ecol Manage 181:177–88.
- Vandegehuchte ML, van der Putten WH, Duyts H, Schütz M, Risch AC. 2017a. Aboveground mammal and invertebrate exclusions cause consistent changes in soil food webs of two subalpine grassland types, but mechanisms are system-speciﬁc. Oikos 126:212–23.
- Vandegehuchte ML, Raschein U, Schütz M, Gwiazdowicz DJ, Risch AC. 2015. Indirect short- and long-term effects of aboveground invertebrate and vertebrate herbivores on soil microarthropod communities. PLoS One 10:e0118679.
- Vandegehuchte ML, Schütz M, de Schaetzen F, Risch AC. 2017b. Mammal-induced trophic cascades in invertebrate food webs are modulated by grazing intensity in subalpine grassland. J Anim Ecol 86:1434–46.
- Vandegehuchte ML, Trivellone V, Schütz M, Firn J, de Schaetzen F, Risch AC. 2018. Mammalian herbivores affect leafhoppers associated with specific plant functional types at different timescales. Funct Ecol 32:545–55.
- Wirthner S, Frey B, Busse MD, Schütz M, Risch AC. 2011. Effects of wild boar (Sus scrofa L.) rooting on the bacterial community structure in mixed-hardwood forest soils in Switzerland. Eur J Soil Biol 47:296–302. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejsobi.2011.07.003
- Zumsteg A, Luster J, Göransson H, Smittenberg RH, Brunner I, Bernasconi SM, Zeyer J, Frey B. 2012. Bacterial, Archaeal and Fungal Succession in the Forefield of a Receding Glacier. Microb Ecol 63:552–64. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-011-9991-8

ecosystem-coupling

display_name: ecosystem-coupling

ecosystem-functions

display_name: ecosystem-functions

ecosystem-multifunctionality

display_name: ecosystem-multifunctionality

exclusion

display_name: exclusion

grassland

display_name: grassland

grazing

display_name: grazing

invertebrates

display_name: invertebrates

subalpine

display_name: subalpine

swiss-national-park

display_name: swiss-national-park

vertebrates

display_name: vertebrates

education

en: Education and science

envidat

en: EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal

en: EnviDat is the WSL data portal providing unified and managed access to environmental monitoring and research data. The portal has the capability to host and publish data sets. Through the sharing of unique and high-value data sets worldwide, EnviDat fosters research and contributes to advancing environmental science.

en: Ecosystem coupling and multifunctionality - exclosure experiment


maintainer: Axel Volkwein

en: experiment natural-hazard field-data mass-movements impact-testing rockfall-experiments field-tests rockfall field-test experiments

state: active

type: dataset

en: Raw data (high speed videos, acceleration measurements, laboratory tests)

media_type: application/zip

en:
This file contains

* the high speed videos showing the concrete blocks impacting the gallery roof.
* the raw data of the acceleration measurements
* the data of Tiefbauamt Graubünden containg the tension tests of gallery reinforcment, ME-testing the cushion layer and the tests on concrete samples.

format: ZIP

mimetype: application/zip

en: Video analysis

en: The zip contains five Excel-files that in turn contain the results of the performed video analyses. The sheet "Daten" contains the pixels of different positions on the blocks that were tracked by the software "Kinovea". The sheet "Auswertung" determines the block kinetics based on the pixel data over time.

en: Acceleration measurements

en: The zip file contains five excel files, one for each test conducted. The first sheet contains the raw data and a data set that went through a low-pass filter. The sheet "Allgemein" contains calibration factors for the sensors and time details of a test. The sheets "DiaDaten" and "DiaDatenGefiltert" show the measurements over time. The block and slab kinetics are determined in the sheets "ZeitintegrationBlock" and "ZeitintegrationPlatte". The sheet "VergleichBeschleunigungen" shows the influence of the low-pass-filter and a running average filter on the block accelerations.

en: Five full-scale field tests were conducted with concrete blocks weighting between 800 and 3200 kg being dropped onto the roof of a gallery structure made from reinforced concrete. The impacts were recorded using high-speed video and acceleration measurements at the falling blocks. The dataset contains the raw data as well as the analyses of the block trajectories, i.e. kinetics and dynamics. Setup of the measurements and the analyses conducted are published in Volkwein, A. "Durchführung und Auswertung von Steinschlagversuchen auf eine Stahlbetongalerie", WSL-Berichte, Heft 68, 2018.

experiment

display_name: experiment

experiments

display_name: experiments

field-data

display_name: field-data

field-test

display_name: field-test

field-tests

display_name: field-tests

impact-testing

display_name: impact-testing

mass-movements

display_name: mass-movements

natural-hazard

display_name: natural-hazard

rockfall

display_name: rockfall

rockfall-experiments

display_name: rockfall-experiments

education

fr: Education, science

de: Bildung, Wissenschaft

it: Formazione e scienza

fr: EnviDat: le portail de données environnementales

de: EnviDat: das Umwelt-Datenportal

it: EnviDat: il portale dei dati ambientali

fr: EnviDat est le portail de données du WSL; il offre un accès uniformisé et réglementé aux données de surveillance et de recherche en matière d’environnement. Ce portail est capable d’héberger et de publier des ensembles de données précieuses et uniques, qui sont partagées aux quatre coins de la planète. Ce faisant, EnviDat favorise la recherche et contribue à l’avancement des sciences environnementales.

de: EnviDat ist das Datenportal der WSL für einen einheitlichen und verwalteten Zugang zu Umweltdaten aus Monitoring- und Forschungsprojekten. Auf dem Portal können Datensätze gehostet und veröffentlicht werden. Durch die weltweite Bereitstellung einzigartiger und wertvoller Datensätze leistet EnviDat einen Beitrag zur Forschung im Bereich der Umweltwissenschaften.

it: EnviDat è il portale dati del WSL che fornisce un accesso unificato e gestito ai dati di monitoraggio ambientale e di ricerca. Il portale ha la capacità di ospitare e pubblicare serie di dati preziosi e unici che vengono condivisi in tutto il mondo. Così facendo, EnviDat promuove la ricerca e contribuisce al progresso della scienza ambientale.

political_level: other

wsl

capacity: public

type: organization

approval_status: approved

key: guid

key: uri

value: Envidat Harvester

en: Rockfall gallery testing Parde 2016


lidar-davos-wolfgang

maintainer: Patric Seifert

title_for_slug: lidar-davos-wolfgang

en: lidar clouds tropos polly raclets

en: Raman Lidar Davos

format: SERVICE

en: A portable Raman lidar system (Polly) from Leibnitz Institute for Tropospheric Research (Tropos) was deployed at Davos Wolfgang (LON: 9.853594, LAT: 46.835577). Please use this [link](http://polly.tropos.de/?p=lidarzeit&Ort=39), to be directly forwarded to the Davos location and select the date of interest from the calendar (bold numbers). The data can be requested directly at the Polly team.

clouds

display_name: clouds

lidar

display_name: lidar

polly

display_name: polly

raclets

display_name: raclets

tropos

display_name: tropos

en: LIDAR Davos Wolfgang


backward-trajectories

maintainer: Michael Sprenger

title_for_slug: backward-trajectories

en: complex-topopgraphy lagrangian-analysis atmospheric-dynamics cosmo backward-trajectories raclets alps

en: Backward Trajectories

en: The trajectories are started from surface up to 5000 m altitude, with an equidistant vertical spacing of 200 m, and calculated 120 h backward in time. As long as the trajectories stay in the COSMO1 domain (essentially the Alpine region), as run operationally at MeteoSwiss, the COSMO analysis wind fields are used. When the trajectories leave this domain, they are extended further backward in time based on ECMWF analysis data. The following fields are traced along the trajectories: longitude, latitude, geopotential height, pressure, specific humidity, temperature and surface topography. Furthermore, it is indicated for each trajectory time instance on which model data, COSMO or ECMWF, the trajectory time is based. Finally, the trajectories are started every hour in the specified time period, and positions and fields are available every 10 min. Each day is saved as a separate file. The last 8 digits of the file names indicate the starting date of the trajectories.

en: Backward trajectories were calculated from two positions: Davos Wolfgang (LON: 9.85361, LAT: 46.83551) and Weissfluhjoch (LON: 9.80646 LAT: 46.83304) for the time period February 2 until March 27 2019 using COSMO or ECMWF, respectively.

alps

display_name: alps

atmospheric-dynamics

display_name: atmospheric-dynamics

backward-trajectories

display_name: backward-trajectories

complex-topopgraphy

display_name: complex-topopgraphy

cosmo

display_name: cosmo

lagrangian-analysis

display_name: lagrangian-analysis

education

en: Education and science

en: Backward  Trajectories


maintainer: Mountain Hydrology and Mass Movements

en: landslide-fatalities ice-avalanche-fatalities natural-hazard-fatalities rockfall-fatalities lightning-fatalities earthquake-fatalities windstorm-fatalities flood-fatalities debris-flow-fatalities

media_type: CSV

en: Natural hazard fatalities per year in Swizterland since 1946.

format: CSV

mimetype: text/csv

en:
This dataset contains the number of fatalities due to flood, debris flow, landslide, rockfall, windstorm, lightning, ice avalanche, earthquake and other processes like roof avalanche or lacustrine tsunami for each year since 1946.
The following information is contained (by column and column title):

* year
* total number of hazard fatalities
* number of fatalities by flood (German: Hochwasser, Überschwemmung). Flood includes people drowned in flooded or inundated areas or carried away in streams under high-water conditions.
* number of fatalities by debris flow (German: Murgang).
* number of fatalities by landslide (German: Erdrutsch). Landslide includes people killed by landslides and hillslope debris flows (German: Hangmure).
* number of fatalities by rockfall (German: Steinschlag, Fels- und Bergsturz).
* number of fatalities by windstorm (German: Sturm). Windstorm includes people killed by falling objects or trees during very strong wind conditions and people who drowned in lakes because their boat capsized during such conditions.
* number of fatalities by lightning (German: Blitz).
* number of fatalities by ice avalanche (German: Eislawine).
* number of fatalities by earthquake (German: Erdbeben).
* number of fatalities by other processes like roof avalanche, lacustrine tsunami (German: andere Prozesse wie Dachlawine, Tsunami im See).

The data was collected based on newspaper research. For more information please refer to

_Badoux, A., Andres, N., Techel, F., and Hegg, C.: Natural hazard fatalities in Switzerland from 1946 to 2015, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 2747-2768, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-16-2747-2016, 2016._

The data collection is financed by the FOEN (with exception of the collection of the avalanche fatalities). The data contains the official statistics of the FOEN on fatalities due to flood, debris flow, landslide, rock fall and avalanche.

Restrictions: The data set is not complete. Only fatalities in or around settlements and on open transportation routes are included. More precisely, fatalities were not collected, when persons exposed themselves to a great danger on purpose. Or fatalities during leisure activities which are connected to a higher risk were not included (this includes e.g. canoeing or river surfing during flood, canyoning, mountaineering, climbing, walking or driving on a closed road).

Fatalities by avalanches are collected at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF. You can download the avalanche fatalities per hydrological year [here](https://www.envidat.ch/dataset/avalanche-fatalities-switzerland-1936) and per calendar year [here](https://www.envidat.ch/dataset/avalanche-fatalities-per-calendar-year-since-1936). For a direct comparison with the fatalities presented here, please download the data set with the calendar years and do not consider fatalities in the backcountry (tour) or in terrain close to ski areas (offpiste).

debris-flow-fatalities

display_name: debris-flow-fatalities

earthquake-fatalities

display_name: earthquake-fatalities

flood-fatalities

display_name: flood-fatalities

ice-avalanche-fatalities

display_name: ice-avalanche-fatalities

landslide-fatalities

display_name: landslide-fatalities

lightning-fatalities

display_name: lightning-fatalities

natural-hazard-fatalities

display_name: natural-hazard-fatalities

rockfall-fatalities

display_name: rockfall-fatalities

windstorm-fatalities

display_name: windstorm-fatalities

envidat

en: EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal

en: EnviDat is the WSL data portal providing unified and managed access to environmental monitoring and research data. The portal has the capability to host and publish data sets. Through the sharing of unique and high-value data sets worldwide, EnviDat fosters research and contributes to advancing environmental science.

en: Number of natural hazard fatalities per year in Switzerland since 1946


envidat-supports-open-science

maintainer: Ionut Iosifescu Enescu

title_for_slug: envidat-supports-open-science

en: envidat juypter-notebooks wsl open-science research-data-management

en: Article as PDF

media_type: application/pdf

format: PDF

mimetype: application/pdf

en:
The article "EnviDat Supports Open Science" originally appeared in WSLintern No. 3 (2020), page 14-15 and it is republished here with permission from the WSLintern editorial team. It contains guidelines for WSL scientists about the main issues behind Open Science and how to pragmatically approach the complexities of doing Open Science with EnviDat’s support.

License: This article is released by WSL and the EnviDat team to the public domain under a Creative Commons 4.0 CC0 "No Rights Reserved" international license. You can reuse the information contained herein in any way you want, for any purposes and without restrictions.

display_name: envidat

juypter-notebooks

display_name: juypter-notebooks

open-science

display_name: open-science

research-data-management

display_name: research-data-management

wsl

display_name: wsl

en: EnviDat Supports Open Science


maintainer: EnviDat Support

en: advection snow metamorphism stable-water-isotope 18o

en: Data files and read-me

en: raw data and micro-CT data available from contacts

en: Read-me

media_type: text/plain

en: A short description of the data contained in the zipped-file. Recommended for reading before downloading the dataset.

format: TXT

mimetype: text/plain

en:
Stable water isotopes (δ18O) obtained from snow and ice samples of polar regions are used to reconstruct past climate variability, but heat and mass transport processes can affect the isotopic composition. Here we present an experimental study on the effect on the snow isotopic composition by airflow through a snow pack in controlled laboratory conditions. The influence of isothermal and controlled temperature gradient conditions on the δ18O content in the snow and interstitial water vapor is elucidated. The observed disequilibrium between snow and vapor isotopes led to exchange of isotopes between snow and vapor under non-equilibrium processes, significantly changing the δ18O content of the snow. The type of metamorphism of the snow had a significant influence on this process.
Ebner, P. P., Steen-Larsen, H. C., Stenni, B., Schneebeli, M., and Steinfeld, A.: Experimental observation of transient δ18O interaction between snow and advective airflow under various temperature gradient conditions, The Cryosphere Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2017-16, accepted, 2017.

advection

display_name: advection

metamorphism

display_name: metamorphism

snow

display_name: snow

stable-water-isotope

display_name: stable-water-isotope

en: Experiments on stable water isotopes,  snow metamorphism, and advection


en: renewable-energy cooperatives energy-cooperatives community-energy switzerland

en: Questionnaire with variable names

media_type: PDF

en: Modified questionnaire with variable names for each item. Should be used together with the data files (.csv or .sav) to reconstruct the data and variable structures.

en: Raw date (SPSS)

media_type: SAV

en: Raw data in sav. format (SPSS). For comprehension of the data and variable structure, please consult the modified questionnaire with variable names.

en: Codebook

en: Description of variable attributes and valid n

en: Raw data (.csv)

en: Raw data in csv. format. For comprehension of the data and variable structure, please consult the codebook and the modified questionnaire with variable names.

en:
 Topic of Survey
The data at hand on energy cooperatives in Switzerland were collected in 2016 as part of the project "Collective financing of renewable energy projects in Switzerland and Germany" of the National Research Programme 71 "Managing Energy Consumption". The cooperatives were surveyed on their organizational structure, their activities in electricity and heat generation, their finances, the political context and their assessments of the future.

 Survey Method
The survey was targeted at all energy cooperatives in Switzerland (this is the basic population). The Swiss Commercial Register was searched for cooperatives and specific keywords in order to determine this basic population and collect addresses. This search in May 2016 resulted in a total of 304 energy cooperatives, to which a questionnaire was sent in July 2016. A pre-test with 8 persons had been carried out before the questionnaire was sent out. The questionnaire was provided in German and French. It was sent by mail and an attached letter referred to a link for the digital version if preferred. The online version was designed with the software "Sawtooth". After three weeks, a first, and after six weeks a second reminder letter was sent to those cooperatives that had not yet completed the questionnaire. The returned hardcopy questionnaires were manually entered into the database and then combined with the electronic data from the online survey. In the course of the survey, the total population was reduced from 304 to 289: in 4 cases the survey was not deliverable, 4 cooperatives had dissolved, 6 were not actually energy cooperatives, 1 case had recently changed its legal form. With a response rate of 47%, the final data set comprises 136 responses (from 77 digital and 59 hardcopy questionnaires). However, not all 136 of the returned questionnaires were filled out completely. We checked for answers that seemed contradictory or incomprehensible. If an error could be clearly identified and the correct answer derived, the answer was adjusted, otherwise the answer was replaced by "missing data".

 Anonymization
Participating cooperatives have been assured that their information will be kept confidential and will only be made public anonymously. For this reason, the data have been anonymized in in order to prevent any identification of individual cooperatives.

 How to Use the Data
* The data are available in CSV and SPSS (sav.) format.
* A codebook and a modified version of the used questionnaire are provided to illustrate the data and variable structure. In the questionnaire, the variable names are assigned to the corresponding questions. In the codebook, further information on these variables (valid n, answer categories) can be found. This information (of the codebook) is already integrated in the SPSS file.

 Current Embargo on Data
These data are currently under embargo and will only be released when the project is completed (not before 2020).

#Additional Information
* The used questionnaire is provided in German and French.
* Descriptive results of the survey were published in a WSL report: https://www.dora.lib4ri.ch/wsl/islandora/object/wsl:18943

community-energy

display_name: community-energy

cooperatives

display_name: cooperatives

energy-cooperatives

display_name: energy-cooperatives

renewable-energy

display_name: renewable-energy

switzerland

display_name: switzerland

education

en: Education and science

en: Energy Cooperatives in Switzerland: Survey Results // Energiegenossenschaften in der Schweiz: Befragungsergebnisse


maintainer: Anita C. Risch

en: grassland global-change climate fertilization nitrogen mineralization soil nutrient-network ammonification nitrification herbivore

en: Risch et al. 2020 - Raw data for publication "Global impacts of fertilization and herbivore removal on soil net nitrogen mineralization are modulated by local climate and soil properties"

en:
we assessed how the removal of mammalian herbivores (Fence) and fertilization with growth-limiting nutrients (N, P, K, plus nine essential macro- and micronutrients; NPK) individually, and in combination (NPK+Fence), affected potential and realized soil net Nmin across 22 natural and semi-natural grasslands on five continents. Our sites spanned a comprehensive range of climatic and edaphic conditions found across the grassland biome. We focused on grasslands, because they cover 40-50% of the ice-free land surface and provide vital ecosystem functions and services. They are particularly important for forage production and C sequestration. Worldwide, grasslands store approximately 20-30% of the Earth’s terrestrial C, most of it in the soil (Schimel, 1995; White et al., 2000).

Study sites and experimental design
The 22 sites contributing to this project are part of the Nutrient Network Global Research Cooperative (NutNet, https://nutnet.umn.edu/). Mean annual temperature across our 22 sites ranged from -4 to 22°C, mean annual precipitation from 252 to 1,592 mm, and elevations from 6 to 4,261 m above sea level (Fig. 1, Supplementary Table S1). Soil organic C varied from 0.8 to 7.8%, soil total N from 0.1 to 0.6%, and the soil C:N ratio from 9.1 to 21.5. Soil clay content spanned from 3.0 to 35%, and soil pH from 3.4 to 7.6 (Supplementary Table S2). Thus, the sites covered a wide range of environments in which grasslands occur (Fig. 1, Supplementary Table S1 & S2).
At each site, the effects of nutrient addition and herbivore removal were tested via a randomized-block design (Borer et al., 2014; Supplementary Fig. S1a). Three replicate blocks with 10 treatment plots each were established at each site, with the exception of the site at bldr.us, where only two blocks were established (Supplementary Fig. S1a). The 10 plots were randomly assigned to a nutrient or fencing treatment, but only a subset of four plots was used in the current study, each with a different treatment (see below; Supplementary Fig. S1a). All plots were 5 x 5 m and divided into four 2.5 x 2.5 m subplots (Supplementary Fig. S1b). Each subplot was further divided into four 1 x 1 m square sampling plots, one of which was set aside for soil sampling (Borer et al., 2014; Supplementary Fig. S1b). Plots were separated by at least 1 m wide walkways.
In this study, we collected data from the following four treatments: (i) untreated control plots (Control), (ii) herbivore removal plots (Fence), (iii) plots fertilized with N, P, K, plus nine essential macro and micronutrients (NPK), and (iv) plots with simultaneous fertilizer addition and herbivore removal (NPK+Fence; Supplementary Fig. S1a). The number of years of treatment differed among sites (2 – 9 years since start of treatment; Supplementary Table S1). For the nutrient additions, all sites applied 10 g N m-2 yr-1 as time-release urea; 10 g P m-2 yr-1 as triple-super phosphate; 10 g K m-2 yr-1 as potassium sulfate. A micro-nutrient mix (Fe, S, Mg, Mn, Cu, Zn, B, Mo, Ca) was applied at 100 g m-2 together with K in the first year of treatments but not thereafter.
The vertebrate herbivore removal treatment (Fence) was established by fencing two plots, one control and one NPK plot, within each of the blocks (Supplementary Fig. S1a). We designed the fences so that they would effectively exclude aboveground mammalian herbivores with a body mass of over 50 g (Borer et al., 2014). At the majority of sites, the height of the fences was 180 cm, and the fence design included wire mesh (1 cm holes) on the first 90 cm along with a 30 cm outward-facing flange stapled to the ground to exclude burrowing animals; climbing and subterranean animals may potentially still access these plots (Borer et al., 2014). For slight modifications in fence design at a few sites see Supplementary Table S3. While most sites only had native herbivores, a few sites (4) were also grazed by domestic animals (Supplementary Table S1).
Potential and realized soil net N mineralization, ammonification, nitrification and other soil properties
Each site participating in the study received a package containing identical material from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) to be used for sampling and on-site N incubations. For the field incubation, we followed the protocol by Risch et al. (2015, 2019). Briefly, we drove a 5 x 15 cm (diameter x depth) steel cylinder 13.5 cm deep into the soil after clipping the vegetation at randomized locations in each plot. The top 1.5 cm of the cylinder remained empty to capture incoming N from run-off or deposition with a polyester mesh bag (mesh-size 250 µm) filled with 13.2 ± 0.9 g of acidic and alkaline exchanger resin (1:1 mixture; ion-exchanger I KA/ion-exchanger III AA, Merck AG, Darmstadt). The bag was fixed in place with a metal Seeger ring (Bruetsch-Rüegger Holding, Urdorf, Switzerland). We then removed 1.5 cm soil at the bottom of the cylinder and placed another resin bag to capture N leached from the soil column. The exchange resin was saturated with H+ and Cl- prior to filling the bags by stirring the mixture in 1.2M HCl for 1 h and then rinsing it with demineralized water until the electrical conductivity of the water reached 5 μS/cm. The cylinders were then re-inserted into the cored hole, level with the soil surface, and incubated for an average of 42 days (range 40 to 57days). The individual site coordinators chose the timing of incubation to start approximately six weeks prior to peak plant biomass production. All incubations were completed between February 2015 and January 2016 accounting for differences in growing season between northern and southern hemispheres. At the end of the incubation, the cylinders were re-collected and immediately shipped to WSL in an insulated box together with cold packs to halt further mineralization. Gloves were worn at all times to avoid contamination of the samples. Upon arrival at WSL, we extracted the resin bags and a 20 g subsample of sieved soil (4 mm) separately in a 100 ml PE-bottle with 80 ml 1 M KCl for 1.5 h on an end-over-end shaker and filtered through ashless folded filter paper (DF 5895 150, ALBET LabScience). We measured NO3- (colorimetrically; Norman & Stucki, 1981) and NH4+concentrations (flow injection analysis; FIAS 300, Perkin Elmer) on these filtrates.
At the start of the field incubation, we additionally collected two soil cores of 5 x 12 cm (diameter x depth) in each sampling plot and composited them to measure potential soil net Nmin, soil chemical and biological properties (see below). We also collected an additional sample (5 x 12 cm) to assess soil physical properties, which remained within the steel cylinder. Both ends were tightly closed with plastic caps. Cores were carefully packed to avoid further disturbance, and together with the composited soil samples, were shipped to the laboratory at WSL within a few days after collection.
From the composited samples, we extracted an equivalent of 20 g dry soil with KCl, as described above, and measured NO3- and NH4+concentrations. Realized soil net Nmin was then calculated as the difference between the inorganic N content of samples collected at the end of the incubation (plus N extracted from the bottom resin bag) and the N content at the beginning of the incubation; values were scaled to represent daily mineralization rates (mg N kg-1soil d-1; Risch et al., 2015). Realized soil net Nmin values represent an average period of 42 days prior to peak biomass, typically the highest period of biological activity, and not the entire year (Risch et al., 2019).
A second subsample of the composited sample was used to determine potential soil net Nmin in the laboratory (Risch et al., 2019). Briefly, we weighed duplicate samples (8 g dry soil) into 50-ml Falcon tubes. Soil moisture was brought to 60% of the field capacity of each plot, the Falcon tubes tightly closed and then incubated at 20°C for 42 days in a dark room. Every week the Falcon tubes were opened and ventilated. At the end of the incubation, the soil samples were extracted the same way as described above and NO3- and NH4+ was determined. Potential soil net Nmin was calculated as the difference between the N content before and after the incubation and scaled to represent daily values (mg N kg-1soil d-1). Using our NO3- and NH4+ measures we also calculated potential and realized soil net nitrification and soil net ammonification to be able to better understand the drivers of fertilization and herbivore removal effects on potential and realized soil net Nmin.
A third subsample of the composite soil sample was sieved (2 mm mesh) and microbial biomass (μg Cmic g-1 soil dry weight) was estimated by measuring the maximal respiratory response to the addition of glucose solution (4 mg glucose per g soil dry weight dissolved in distilled water; substrate-induced respiration method) on approximately 5.5 g of soil (Anderson & Domsch, 1978). The rest of the composited sample was dried at 65°C for 48 h, ground and sieved (2 mm mesh) to assess a series of soil chemical properties (Risch et al., 2019). We measured the percentage of clay as an indicator of soil texture (Gee & Bauder, 1986; Risch et al., 2019).
Statistical analyses
Potential and realized soil net Nmin were square root transformed to account for a highly skewed data distribution (yt = sign(y)*sqrt|y|; negative values in the data set impeded log transformation). To assess treatment effects on potential and realized soil net Nmin, we used linear mixed effects models (LMMs) fitted by maximum likelihood using the lme function from the nlme package (version 3.131.1; Pinheiro et al., 2016), R version 3.6.1; R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Treatment (Control, Fence, NPK, NPK+Fence) was a fixed factor, with site and block as random factors, where block was nested within site. We also tested for effects of time since start of treatments in preliminary analyses by adding total treatment years as an additional fixed factor. We did not find a significant effect of years of treatment, and thus dropped this variable from the models. The LMMs were corrected using varIdent if the homogeneity of variance criterion was not met (Pinheiro et al., 2016). To visualize our results, we calculated treatment effects using Cohens’ d statistic (Cohen, 1977; Koricheva et al., 2013). Note that calculating response ratios (or log response ratios) was not possible with our data, as we have both negative and positive values. We also fitted LMMs for potential and realized soil net ammonification and nitrification to gain more insight into how global change affects the processes underpinning potential and realized soil net Nmin. We also sqrt-transformed (see above) these dependent variables. Treatment was included as a fixed factor with random factors as described above. In addition, we assessed how potential and realized soil net Nmin were related to potential and realized soil net ammonification and nitrification, respectively. For this, we calculated site averages for each treatment separately. We then ran LMMs, with potential and realized soil net Nmin as the dependent variable, potential and realized soil net ammonification/nitrification as the independent ones. Site was included as a random factor.
Based on our previous work (Risch et al., 2019) and the existing literature (Schimel & Bennett, 2004; Liu et al., 2017), we developed a priori causal conceptual models of relationships among treatments, environmental drivers, and potential and realized soil net Nmin (Supplementary Fig. S2) to test with structural equation modelling (SEM) using a d-sep approach (Shipley, 2009; Lefcheck, 2016). The variables included in the model were long-term climatic conditions, specifically, site-level mean annual precipitation (MAP) and temperature of the wettest quarter (T.q.wet), plot-level soil texture (clay content) and soil microbial biomass. Mean annual precipitation and T.q.wet were obtained from WorldClim (Hijmans et al., 2005) (http://www.worldclim.org/) and together with the experimental treatments were predicted to directly affect soil properties and soil net Nmin (Supplementary Fig. S2). Soil clay content was, in turn, predicted to affect microbial biomass and soil net Nmin. Because we determined microbial biomass prior to incubating the samples in the laboratory or field, we assumed that the abundance of these microbes would be responsible for N process rates and not vice versa (Supplementary Fig. S2). We tested our conceptual model (Supplementary Fig. S2) using the piecewiseSEM package (version 2.0.2; Lefcheck, 2016) in R 3.4.0, in which a structured set of linear models are fitted individually. This approach allowed us to account for the nested experimental design, and overcome some of the limitations of standard structural equation models, such as small sample sizes (Shipley, 2009; Lefcheck, 2016). We used the lme function of the nlme package to model response variables, including site as a random factor. Good fit of the SEM was assumed when Fisher’s C values were non-significant (p > 0.05). For all significant interactions between covariates and experimental treatments detected in the SEMs, we calculated treatment effect sizes, i.e. the differences in potential or realized soil net Nmin between Control and treatments (Fence, NPK, NPK+Fence) and plotted these values against the climate or soil covariates. Finally, we fitted LMMs for the soil variables included in our SEMs, with treatment as the fixed factor, and with site and block as random factors, where block was nested within site.

format: XLS

en:
This dataset contains all data on which the following publication below is based.

Paper Citation:

Risch Anita C., Zimmermann, Stefan, Moser, Barbara, Schütz, Martin, Hagedorn, Frank, Firn, Jennifer, Fay, Philip A., Adler, Peter B., Biederman, Lori A., Blair, John M., Borer, Elizabeth T., Broadbent, Arthur A.D., Brown, Cynthia S., Cadotte, Marc W., Caldeira, Maria C., Davies, Kendi F., di Virgilio, Augustina, Eisenhauer, Nico, Eskelinen, Anu, Knops, Johannes M.H., MacDougall, Andrew S., McCulley, Rebecca L., Melbourne, Brett A., Moore, Joslin L., Power, Sally A., Prober, Suzanne M., Seabloom, Eric W., Siebert, Julia, Silveira, Maria L. , Speziale, Karina L., Stevens, Carly J., Tognetti, Pedro M., Virtanen, Risto, Yahdjian, Laura, Ochoa-Hueso, Raul (accepted). Global impacts of fertilization and herbivore removal on soil net nitrogen mineralization are modulated by local climate and soil properties. Global Change Biology

Please cite this paper together with the citation for the datafile.

We assessed how the removal of mammalian herbivores (Fence) and fertilization with growth-limiting nutrients (N, P, K, plus nine essential macro- and micronutrients; NPK) individually, and in combination (NPK+Fence), affected potential and realized soil net Nmin across 22 natural and semi-natural grasslands on five continents. Our sites spanned a comprehensive range of climatic and edaphic conditions found across the grassland biome. We focused on grasslands, because they cover 40-50% of the ice-free land surface and provide vital ecosystem functions and services. They are particularly important for forage production and C sequestration. Worldwide, grasslands store approximately 20-30% of the Earth’s terrestrial C, most of it in the soil (Schimel, 1995; White et al., 2000).

ammonification

display_name: ammonification

climate

display_name: climate

fertilization

display_name: fertilization

global-change

display_name: global-change

grassland

display_name: grassland

herbivore

display_name: herbivore

mineralization

display_name: mineralization

nitrification

display_name: nitrification

nitrogen

display_name: nitrogen

nutrient-network

display_name: nutrient-network

soil

display_name: soil

envidat

en: EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal

en: EnviDat is the WSL data portal providing unified and managed access to environmental monitoring and research data. The portal has the capability to host and publish data sets. Through the sharing of unique and high-value data sets worldwide, EnviDat fosters research and contributes to advancing environmental science.

en: Anthropogenic change and soil net N mineralization


maintainer: Giulia Francesca Azzurra Donati

en: integrated-modelling circuit-theory ecological-corridors biodiversity urban-spatial-planning human-dominated-landscapes

en: Amphibian species specific landscape resistance maps.

media_type: zip-compressed folder of ascii files

en: For each amphibian species we used the weighted average Ensemble model suitability map and converted it to a resistance map using an exponential decay function following (Duflot et al., 2018) using the species-specific mpa threshold previously computed (Preau et al., 2020). The function assigns a resistance value of 1,000 when habitat suitability equals zero, and a value of one when habitat suitability is greater than or equal to the binarization threshold. The exponential shape strengthens the barrier effect of less favorable areas.

en: Amphibian whole life cycle predictors - 10m resolution

en:
Amphibian whole life cycle predictors include 6 variable types:
(1)	Topographic – slope [°]: derived from the Swiss Topographical Landscape model (swissTLM 3D 2015) at 2 m resolution (elevation uncertainty ± 0.5m) and, subsequently, aggregated to a median value;
(2)	Hydrologic: two predictors including nearest distance to water [m] (all water-related objects and rasterized lotic, lentic and reedbeds from the regional cadastral maps – AV: Daten der Amtliche Vermessung) and runoff coefficient [C] (between 0 and 1 relating amount of runoff to amount of precipitation, mapped AV: Daten der Amtliche Vermessung data against literature values for different land covers);
(3)	Edaphic – soil moisture variability (not available): can gathered from the spatial modelling of Ecological Indicator Values in Switzerland (Descombes et al., 2020) and resampled from 100m to 10m;
(4)	Vegetation: we calculated the median and standard deviation of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from all available cloud free Sentinel-2 pixels available between April and October for the years 2016 to 2019 (Drusch et al., 2012) and the median vegetation height [m] (not available) can gathered from Ginzler and Hobi (2015);
(5)	Land-use derived: includes three predictors, grassland density [grassland/cell] (not available) - can be gathered from Pazur et al. (2021), total grasslands area evaluated using a spatial weight matrix and a 250m neighborhood radius around each cell; urbanization [buildings/cell] – average building density for a 250m neighborhood around each cell based on the AV: Daten der Amtliche Vermessung ; and traffic intensity [vehicles/day] – average daily vehicle count (Nationales Personenverkehrsmodells);
(6)	Movement-ecology related: includes three predictors of proximity – nearest forest distance [m]; nearest rock-gravel and sandy area (RGS) distance [m] and nearest road distance [m] (considering any road type) – all calculated based on the AV: Daten der Amtliche Vermessung maps.

en: Amphibian monitoring data

media_type: .csv

en: Processed amphibian occurrence data (2017-2019) in the cantons of Aargau and Zürich. The dataset includes information for the following species: _Alytes obstetricans_,_Bombina variegata_, _Bufo bufo_, _Hyla arborea_, _Ichtyosaura alpestris_, _Lissotriton helveticus_, _Lissotriton vulgaris_, _Rana temporaria_, _Salamandra salamandra_, and _Triturus cristatus_.

en: Amphibian breeding sites of national importance - cantons of Aargau and Zürich

media_type: .asc

en: Amphibian breeding sites of national importance (focal nodes) in the cantons of Aargau and Zürich, 30x30 m resolution, binarised ascii format.

en: Binarized "green" and "grey" landcover data (Cantons of Aargau and Zürich)

en: "Green" landcover refers to lawns and vegetated urban surfaces such as, for example private gardens, public parks, cemeteries, green stripes along roadsides, etc. While "grey" landcover refers to impervious grounds such as roads, troittoirs, other impervious. Binarized maps, 30x30m resolution.

en: The data includes (1) amphibian occurrence data (2017-2019) for ten species across the cantons of Aargau and Zürich gathered from the Coordination Center for the Protection of Amphibians and Reptiles of Switzerland (http://www.karch.ch), (2) amphibian whole-life cycle environmental predictors (i.e. topographic, hydrologic, edaphic, vegetation, land-use derived, movement-ecology related), and (3) local urban "green" and "grey" landcover data which can be used to identify opportunities for Blue-Green Infrastructure (through green or grey transitions) in support of regional landscape connectivity.

biodiversity

display_name: biodiversity

circuit-theory

display_name: circuit-theory

ecological-corridors

display_name: ecological-corridors

human-dominated-landscapes

display_name: human-dominated-landscapes

integrated-modelling

display_name: integrated-modelling

urban-spatial-planning

display_name: urban-spatial-planning

en: Amphibian and urban-rural landscape data Swiss Lowlands


maintainer: Henning Löwe

en: angle-of-repose grain-shape fast-sintering discrete-element-modelling granular-snow

en: Angle of repose and 3D CT images

en:
5 Snow types were examined and glass beads as a cohesion-less reference, named as follows:

RG: rounded grains (sieved with 0.7 - 1.4 mm)

FC: faceted grains (1.4 - 2 mm)

FCS: small faceted grains (0.7 - 1.4 mm)

IB: ice beads (4 mm)

IBS: small ice beads (2 - 2.2 mm)

GB: glass beads(2 mm)

en:
Angle of repose experiments were performed with different snow types at temperatures between -2 and -40°C. They were used to examine granular snow dynamics on the grain-scale with focus on the role of grain shape and cohesion. The angle of repose was observed by sieving snow onto a round, freestanding base until a stationary heap was formed.

This dataset consists of 1) the images of the experimental heaps that were taken to determine the angle of repose, 2) one binary 3D micro computed tomography image of each snow type. The CT images were taken with the SLF micro-CT40 to characterize snow properties and grain shape.

The experiments with natural snow types (rounded and faceted grains) and spherical model snow allowed for an examination of the differences in granular properties between natural grain shapes and spherical particles in view of Discrete Element Modelling. With the chosen temperatures, the effect of sintering could be observed that increases the angle of repose with increasing temperature.

angle-of-repose

display_name: angle-of-repose

discrete-element-modelling

display_name: discrete-element-modelling

fast-sintering

display_name: fast-sintering

grain-shape

display_name: grain-shape

granular-snow

display_name: granular-snow

education

en: Education and science

en: Angle of repose experiments with natural and spherical snow


maintainer: Zhao

en: land-dynamics urban-land-use planning driving-factors austin

en: Potential driving factors of urban transformations of Austin over 25 years

media_type: ZIP

en: In this study, the Austin metropolitan area, Texas, U.S., one of the fastest urban transformations and transformations regions, is selected to test the hypothesis that spatial planning and policies are important factors of urban transformations. Despite ample previous work in understanding the interactions between human and urban form transformation at specific areas, the actual interventions and outcomes of planning and policies (e.g., ‘smart growth’) on urban forms have been poorly measured. In this study, the potential influencing factors of urban transformations of Austin over 25 years were selected and collected.

austin

display_name: austin

driving-factors

display_name: driving-factors

land-dynamics

display_name: land-dynamics

planning

display_name: planning

urban-land-use

display_name: urban-land-use

envidat

en: EnviDat: the Environmental Data Portal

en: EnviDat is the WSL data portal providing unified and managed access to environmental monitoring and research data. The portal has the capability to host and publish data sets. Through the sharing of unique and high-value data sets worldwide, EnviDat fosters research and contributes to advancing environmental science.