Identification

Title

Leaf litter decomposition in Welsh upland rivers in response to organic matter addition (2012 - 2013)

Abstract

These data are leaf litter decomposition rate in eight Welsh upland rivers with contrasting land-use, moorland and exotic conifer, in response to riparian deciduous leaf addition. Eight sampling reaches were chosen at two sites, Llyn Brianne (4 reaches) and Plynlimon (4 reaches). The experiment consisted of adding deciduous leaves to half of the reaches whilst the other half were maintained as a control (no addition of deciduous leaves). To characterise the leaf litter decomposition of the studied streams, onion bags were placed during November 2012, and then collected during January 2013 (before deciduous leaf addition) and March 2013 (after deciduous leaf addition) in each sampling reach. The main goal of this survey was to examine how aquatic biodiversity and litter decomposition respond to leaf addition in moorland and conifer forested rivers. Dr Isabelle Durance was responsible for organising the surveys, Dr Hugh Feeley, Dr Dan Perkins and Marian Pye were in charge of collecting, processing and sorting the samples. The work was carried out under Diversity in Upland Rivers for Ecosystem Service Sustainability (DURESS) project (Grant reference NERC NE/J014818/1). DURESS was a project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Sustainability (BESS) programme. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/c121f915-6f64-4b74-aa24-cd70708a29d2

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://data-package.ceh.ac.uk/sd/c121f915-6f64-4b74-aa24-cd70708a29d2.zip

name: Supporting information

description: Supporting information available to assist in re-use of this dataset

function: information

https://data-package.ceh.ac.uk/data/c121f915-6f64-4b74-aa24-cd70708a29d2

name: Download the data

description: Download a copy of this data

function: download

Unique resource identifier

code

https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/c121f915-6f64-4b74-aa24-cd70708a29d2

codeSpace

doi:

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

biota

environment

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Environmental Monitoring Facilities

originating controlled vocabulary

title

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2008-06-01

Keyword set

keyword value

originating controlled vocabulary

title

GeoNames

reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2006-01-01

Keyword set

keyword value

Plynlimon

Llyn Brianne

ecosystem services

decomposition

diversity

leaf litter decomposition

land-use

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-3.785

East bounding longitude

-3.641

North bounding latitude

52.518

South bounding latitude

52.429

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2017-04-19

date type

creation

effective date

2013-03-15

Frequency of update

notPlanned

Quality and validity

Lineage

Each stream was divided into an upstream control zone and a downstream experimental zone. Samples of leafs were collected on each sampling occasion. Deciduous leaves were added directly to the stream and by fixing 'Onion bags' of leaves the stream bed and bank. Samples were collected two occasions, January (3-16/01/2013), and March (11-14/03/2013) in all the streams in both the upstream reference zones and downstream experimental zones. In early November 2012, 48 replicate litter bags (24 per reference zone and 24 per experimental zone) of two mesh types, fine and course filled with air dried deciduous leaves were secured in pairs to randomly distributed metal poles each of the study streams. The mesh bags were then covered with cobbles to facilitate biological colonisation. At the end of the 'before' treatment half the litter bags or 6 fine and 6 coarse mesh litter bags were removed gently from both the reference and experimental study zones within each stream. At the same time 6 new fine mesh and 6 new coarse mesh litter bags were added to each pole to measure the decomposition during the 'after' manipulation period. These bags were left until the end the experimental period. At this point all of the remaining litter bags were removed. Directly upon collection, all litter bags were preserved in 70 per cent ethanol on site, within individual clear polystyrene bags, marked with an identifying code and transported back to the laboratory for processing. Once in the laboratory the leaf material from each litter bag was rinsed carefully under tap water under a fine sieve and air dried at room temperature. All macroinvertebrates were separated from the contents of each litter bag. Data was exported to a comma separated values files for ingestion into the Environmental Information Data Centre (EIDC).

Conformity

Conformity report

specification

title

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2010-12-08

degree

explanation

Data format

name of format

Comma-separated values (CSV)

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

If you reuse this data, you should cite: Durance, I., Feeley, H.B., Perkins, D.M., Pye, M.C., Gutierrez-Canovas, C., Ormerod, S.J., Woodward, G. (2017). Leaf litter decomposition in Welsh upland rivers in response to organic matter addition (2012 - 2013). NERC Environmental Information Data Centre https://doi.org/10.5285/c121f915-6f64-4b74-aa24-cd70708a29d2

publisher

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

Environmental Information Data Centre

full postal address

Lancaster Environment Centre, Library Avenue, Bailrigg

Lancaster

LA1 4AP

email address

info@eidc.ac.uk

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2022-08-02T16:20:25

Metadata language

eng