Co-located ecological data from five long-term grassland-to-woodland land use contrasts across England measured between 2018 and 2021

This collection contains four datasets with the following measurements from five long-term grassland-to-woodland contrasts across England: plant aboveground net primary productivity, litter layer depth, soil water release curves, hydraulic conductivity, earthworm counts and identification, and soil physical, chemical and biological properties to 1 m depth. A file is provided to connect all the co-located measurements.

The five land use contrasts were: Gisburn (Gisburn-1, Gisburn-2), Alice Holt, Wytham Woods, and Kielder Forest. Each land use contrast was assigned a grassland and a woodland plot. Each of these plots were further divided into three grids (grassland grids 1 to 3 / woodland grids 4 to 6) with grids 1 to 6 being the furthest apart. The contrast boundary is between grids 3 and 4.

This project was part of the UK-SCAPE programme which started in 2018 and was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council as National Capability (award number NE/R016429/1).