Summary & Purpose

Observations of ecosystem processes across gradients provide invaluable information on the effects of potential shifts in the observed gradient. Ongoing observations from a network of four eddy covariance systems are available to quantify water and carbon fluxes along a climate/elevation gradient within a sagebrush ecosystem. The network is part of the Reynolds Creek Critical Zone Observatory located in southwestern Idaho, USA and contributes to ongoing long-term environmental research and monitoring by the USDA Agricultural Research Service at the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed. The sites include a Wyoming big sagebrush site, a low sagebrush site, a post-fire mountain big sagebrush site, and a mountain big sagebrush site located at elevations ranging from of 1425 to 2111 m. Climate variation follows the montane elevation gradient; mean annual precipitation at the sites varies from 290 to 795 mm, and mean annual temperature ranges from is 9.1 to 5.4°C. Annual Gross Ecosystem Production (GEP) for the sites averaged 349, 555, and 814 gC/m2, respectively for the first two years of observation. Annual Net Ecosystem Production (NEP) indicated that the Wyoming big sagebrush site at the lowest elevation was nearly carbon-neutral for 2015, while the other sites had a net flux of 110 to 150 gC/m2 to the ecosystem during the first two years.

Author Identifier

Aaron W. Fellows, ORCID: 0000-0003-1155-1708; Gerald N. Flerchinger, ORCID: 0000-0002-5156-5090; Mark S. Seyfried, ORCID: 0000-0001-8081-0713; Kathleen Lohse, ORCID: 0000-0003-1779-6773

Date of Publication or Submission

10-26-2017

DOI

https://doi.org/10.18122/B2TD7V

Funding Citation

Funding for the observation network was provided by the USDA Agricultural Research Service and the National Science Foundation for Reynolds Creek Critical Zone Observatory Cooperative agreement under award #NSF EAR 1331872 (Kathleen Lohse, Principal Investigator; Nancy Glenn, Co-Principal Investigator; Alejandro Flores, Co-Principal Investigator; Shawn Benner, Co-Principal Investigator; Mark Seyfried, Co-Principal Investigator).

Single Dataset or Series?

Series

Data Format

*.csv, *.xls, *.zip

Data Attributes

The data are from the Reynolds Creek Critical Zone Observatory (RC CZO) Climate Gradient Core Network. A network of core observation sites along an elevation/climate gradient was established in 2014 as part of the RC CZO to intensively monitor long-term carbon fluxes and soil carbon dynamics. Data include observations from four eddy covariance (EC) towers and nearby meteorological stations. Core network sites include a Wyoming big sagebrush site, a low sagebrush site, a post-fire mountain big sagebrush site, and an undisturbed mountain big sagebrush site. These sites are designated as wbsec, losec, 138h08ec, and mbsec. All sites are located near long-term meteorological stations. Nancys is within 140 m of wbsec, Lower Sheep is within 500 m of losec, Upper Sheep (138j10) is located within 70 m of 138h08ec, and Reynolds Mountain is located within 800 m of mbsec. Data from the EC towers were used to fill gaps in the meteorological station records. Short and long wave radiation, air temperature and humidity were collected at all EC sites every 30 minutes using a four-component net radiometer (CNR-1, Kipp & Zonen, Delft, The Netherlands), and a temperature/humidity probe (HMP155C, Vaisala, Helsinki, Finland). Ground heat flux was measured with six heat flux sensors (HFT3, REBS, Seattle, WA) installed 0.08-m deep within the soil and three sets of self-averaging thermocouples installed at 0.02 and 0.06-m deep. Measured soil moisture was used to compute volumetric heat capacity of the soil above the heat flux plates. Soil moisture was measured hourly near the post-fire sagebrush site using two sets of time domain reflectometry probes installed at 0.10 m and every 30 minutes at the remaining sites using Hydra-probe II soil moisture sensors (Stevens Water Monitoring System, Inc., Portland, OR) installed at 0.05 m. Observations at meteorological stations near the EC towers include air temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, solar radiation. Data were collected at 15-minute intervals and processed at 30-minute intervals. Dual-gauge systems especially designed for the windy and snow-dominated conditions prevalent in the area were used to measure precipitation; precipitation data were processed hourly. EC systems consisted of a three-dimensional sonic anemometer (Model CSAT3, Campbell Scientific, Inc., Logan UT) and an open path infrared gas analyzer (IRGA; Model LI-7500a, LI-COR, Inc., Lincoln, NE) sampled at 10 Hz. Systems were mounted to towers between 1.7 to 2.5 m above the plant canopy; heights were 2.05, 2.09, 3.5, and 2.5 m above the ground surface for the Wyoming big sagebrush, low sagebrush, post-fire sagebrush, and mountain big sagebrush site, respectively. Turbulent fluxes were calculated at 30 min intervals using software developed by LI-COR Biosciences (EddyPro® version 5.2.1; Lincoln, Nebraska USA; https://www.licor.com). Processing options selected in the software included: removing spikes and outlier values in the 10 Hz data with the software’s standard settings; rotating measured wind speeds to account for non-horizontal stream lines using the double rotation method; block averaging to determine the deviations in vertical wind speed and scalar gas concentrations; adjusting for the time-lag between the measured wind speed and scalar gas concentrations by maximizing the covariance between the two time series; compensating for the impact of density fluctuations on gas concentrations using Webb et al. (1980); and adjusting fluxes for high-pass and low-pass filtering effects (Moncrieff et al., 2004, 1997). Missing flux observations were caused by instrument malfunction, non-turbulent conditions, or filtering based on data quality. Non-turbulent conditions were identified as periods with a friction velocity below 0.2 m s−1. Net ecosystem exchange (NEE) was filled and partitioned into ecosystem respiration (Reco) and gross primary production (GPP; g C m−2 s−1) using REddyProc software developed for R (Reichstein et al., 2005; http://www.bgc-jena.mpg.de; version 0.6-0). Missing water fluxes were filled by regression with potential ET for the surrounding 14-day period according to Flerchinger et al. (2014). Daily summaries of gap-filled and partitioned fluxes are provided. Sites are located in the USDA - ARS Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed. Specifically, site locations are Nancys (43.167545 N 116.713205 W), Lower Sheep (43.1438884 N 116.735561 W), Upper Sheep (43.120711 N 116.723086 W) and Reynolds Mountain (43.064483 N 116.74862 W), all in WGS84.

Time Period

2014-2019

Update Frequency

Other

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Use Restrictions

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Disclaimer of Warranty

BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE SUITABILITY OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN OR PROVIDED AS PART OF THE SYSTEM FOR ANY PURPOSE. ALL SUCH INFORMATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY HEREBY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS WITH REGARD TO THIS INFORMATION, INCLUDING ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF INFORMATION AVAILABLE FROM THE SYSTEM. THE INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE SYSTEM COULD INCLUDE TECHNICAL INACCURACIES OR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. CHANGES ARE PERIODICALLY ADDED TO THE INFORMATION HEREIN. COMPANY AND/OR ITS RESPECTIVE SUPPLIERS MAY MAKE IMPROVEMENTS AND/OR CHANGES IN THE PRODUCT(S) AND/OR THE PROGRAM(S) DESCRIBED HEREIN AT ANY TIME, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU. BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY DOES NOT MAKE ANY ASSURANCES WITH REGARD TO THE ACCURACY OF THE RESULTS OR OUTPUT THAT DERIVES FROM USE OF THE SYSTEM.

Comments

Dataset Update 3/9/2020: The dataset has been updated to include data through water year 2019, adding three additional years to the data. Additionally, fluxes for all years have been reprocessed to include the following changes described Flerchinger et al. (2019): fluxes were filtered for outliers using an approach similar to Papale et al. (2006); and the bootstrap method available within the online REddyProc software (http://www.bgc-jena.mpg.de; version 1.1.3) was used to identify seasonal friction velocity thresholds. Further details and uncertainty estimates for the fluxes are given by Flerchinger et al. (2019).

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