Data collected from research networks present opportunities to test theories and develop models about factors responsible for the long-term persistence and vulnerability of soil organic matter (SOM). Synthesizing datasets collected by different research networks presents opportunities to expand the ecological gradients and scientific breadth of information available for inquiry. Synthesizing these data is challenging, especially considering the legacy of soil data that have already been collected and an expansion of new network science initiatives. To facilitate this effort, here we present the SOils DAta Harmonization database (SoDaH; https://lter.github.io/som-website, last access: 22 December 2020), a flexible database designed to harmonize diverse SOM datasets from multiple research networks. SoDaH is built on several network science efforts in the United States, but the tools built for SoDaH aim to provide an open-access resource to facilitate synthesis of soil carbon data. Moreover, SoDaH allows for individual locations to contribute results from experimental manipulations, repeated measurements from long-term studies, and local- to regional-scale gradients across ecosystems or landscapes. Finally, we also provide data visualization and analysis tools that can be used to query and analyze the aggregated database. The SoDaH v1.0 dataset is archived and available at https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/9733f6b6d2ffd12bf126dc36a763e0b4 (Wieder et al., 2020).

Full List of Authors

William R. Wieder^1,28, Derek Pierson^2,29, Stevan Earl³, Kate Lajtha², Sara G. Baer^4,5, Ford Ballantyne⁶, Asmeret Asefaw Berhe⁷, Sharon A. Billings^8,5, Laurel M. Brigham^1,9, Stephany S. Chacon^2,10, Jennifer Fraterrigo¹¹, Serita D. Frey¹², Katerina Georgiou^13,30, Marie-Anne de Graaff¹⁴, A. Stuart Grandy¹², Melannie D. Hartman^15,31, Sarah E. Hobbie¹⁶, Chris Johnson¹⁷, Jason Kaye¹⁸, Emily Kyker-Snowman¹², Marcy E. Litvak¹⁹, Michelle C. Mack²⁰, Avni Malhotra²¹, Jessica A. M. Moore²², Knute Nadelhoffer²³, Craig Rasmussen²⁴, Whendee L. Silver²⁵, Benjamin N. Sulman²⁶, Xanthe Walker²⁰, and Samantha Weintraub²⁷

• ¹Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA
• ²Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA
• ³Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
• ⁴Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
• ⁵Kansas Biological Survey, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
• ⁶Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
• ⁷Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA, USA
• ⁸Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
• ⁹Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA
• ¹⁰Climate and Ecosystem Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA
• ¹¹Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA
• ¹²Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA
• ¹³Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
• ¹⁴Department of Biological Sciences, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA
• ¹⁵Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder CO, USA
• ¹⁶Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
• ¹⁷Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
• ¹⁸Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
• ¹⁹Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
• ²⁰Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA
• ²¹Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
• ²²Bioscience Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
• ²³Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
• ²⁴Department of Environmental Science, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
• ²⁵Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
• ²⁶Climate Change Science Institute and Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
• ²⁷National Ecological Observatory Network, Battelle, Boulder, CO, USA
• ²⁸Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
• ²⁹Department of Biological Sciences, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID, USA
• ³⁰Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
• ³¹Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA