Disentangling the impact of forest management intensity components on soil biological processes

Temperate forests cover 25 % of the world's forest area and most of them are managed for timber production. To increase yields native deciduous trees have been commonly replaced by fast-growing conifers, especially in Western and Central Europe. Despite the importance of forest soils for a variety of ecosystem functions, the effects of forest management intensity on soil biological processes have not yet been sufficiently understood. Using a standardized sampling protocol that is covering 200 plots across 4 regions with different abiotic site conditions, our study aims at disentangling the effects of individual components of forest management intensity such as i) share of native deciduous trees ii) timber harvesting volume and iii) natural deadwood volume on soil biological processes. Our findings indicate that the effects of management practices on soil biological processes are as important as abiotic factors, such as subsoil pH value and soil texture. Piecewise structural equation mod..., The data was collected as part of the BiCO2 project, a large-scale study of biodiversity and carbon storage along a forestry intensity gradient at four different forest sites in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. This partial dataset was used to investigate the effects of forest management components on nutrient cycling and soil biological properties for the manuscript ‘Disentangling the impact of forest management intensity components on soil biological processes’ by Klein-Raufhake et al 2024., , # Data from: Disentangling the impact of forest management intensity components on soil biological processes [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.bnzs7h4mr](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.bnzs7h4mr) ## Description of the data and file structure We analyzed the effects of forest management components on nutrient cycling and soil biological processes in temperate forests. To this end, we have examined the topsoil of 200 plots across four regions with different abiotic site conditions. ### Files and variables The dataset consists of the metadata of the 200 plots and the soil properties of the soil samples from 0-5 cm mineral soil depth measured in the laboratory. All variables occurring in the data set 'mastertab_soil_formi.xlsx' are explained in the table ‘mastertab_soil_formi_metadata.xlsx’ and listed with units and scale. The 'mastertab_ph_gradient.xlsx' dataset contains the pH values of all sampled soil horizons for all 200 plots. All variables occurring in this dataset are explained i...