Import biomass: Broken Hill 2016-2019

[KW529]

I messaged Uffe with the following e-mail: After reviewing your files, I noticed that for all the sites you sent lists the following plots in the plan table: 1 (Control) 2 (Drought) 3 (Control) 4 (Drought) 6 (Drought) 8 (Control) However, you list plots 1-9 in the biomass and cover tables. Could you please let me know what the treatments were for plots 5, 7, and 9?

To which he replied: Plots 5, 7 and 9 are ‘irrigated’ using gravity to transfer water collected from the ‘reduced’ to neighbour plots. They might be handy as alternative ‘control’ plots as it has been very dry since we established the sites (even these plots are likely below ‘normal ambient rainfall’). You can discard those plots unless you see a particular value in including them. I’d guess that we’re removing around 65% but only increasing about 50% after loss in gutters and hoses. Sounds good. We did see a bit of new vegetation in the irrigated plots last week.

[KW529]

Figured it out and entered data

[KW529]

Issue with biomass sampling dates. I sent e-mail on 2-28-2020 to Uffe: "Hi Uffe,

I hope all is well! I am e-mailing to inquire about the following sites with biomass dates that are around 5 months apart in 2017:

Broken Hill (Control sampling: most in October; Drought sampling: most in March) Cobar (Control sampling: most in October; Drought sampling: most in October, one in March) Nyngan (Control sampling: most in March; Drought sampling: most in October)

Could you let us know if you all listed the correct dates (see 2017 data attached)? If so, what was the reasoning for sampling these plots at such different time periods?

Best, Kate"

Uffe's reply on 4-8-2020:

"Hi Kate

This looks ok – biomass is estimated allometrically for individual species and when there weren’t anything in the plots that would result in a gap. A bit difficult to figure out when you haven’t been involved in collecting the data. So, total biomass for the plot is the sum for each species, with biomass being 0 in some plots (it’s been bone dry out there and we’ve had several plots with no live standing biomass at various times). Please set biomass to 0 for plots that don’t have anything pop up. Hope that clarifies.

Yeah, it’s crazy days! Australia isn’t that hard hit so far, hope we can keep it from rising rapidly, and currently stuck at home as I’m sure you all are. Thought it’d be a good time to get some writing done but find myself spending most of my time on zoom instead. At least we can enjoy the autumn at home.

How are you doing these days?

Best,

Uffe"

This reply did not clarify the date mismatch, so Mendy followed up on 5-26-2020: "Hi Uffe,

We are still trying to figure out how to reconcile your data and include it in the one-year drought manuscript and future manuscripts. The bottom line is that we need an annual estimate of aboveground production and a date in which you could say that annual increment of ANPP was collected. This will allow us to figure out annual precipitation and the drought treatment precipitation. As it stands now, we have two measures of biomass from you. We understand these represent changes in biomass over time, but it would help us if you could please provide an annual measure of biomass of each species and final date of biomass collection so that we can calculate total precipitation for the year. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Best, Mendy"

[KW529]

7-10-2020 Hi Kate

All good here – still working from home and will be for the foreseeable future, but hopeful that we can get in the field by August and continue our work in the outback.

Finally starting to find a new routine (fewer Zoom meetings to put out fires…) and have revised the biomass data (attached) for the first year so that it is hopefully in a more useful format for your analyses. I’d use the data in the spreadsheet for all the sites.

There are two worksheets – one for standing biomass (assessed allometrically) and one for NPP after 6 and 12 months (given in increments for 0-6 months, 6-12 months, and 0-12 months). This is calculated as growth of individual species relative to the previous sampling date. We only have standing biomass for the baseline in September/October 2016 and can’t calculate NPP relative to previous time points.

Note that one column is for total biomass and the remaining for species level (I’ve added a header to indicate that).

The soil data are from 2016.

Let me know if you need anything else and hope you’re all well in Co.

Best,

Uffe

[KW529]

7-10-2020 Hi Uffe,

So, if I understand correctly, there shouldn't be any ANPP values for 2016 since this is just standing biomass that you use to calculate NPP in subsequent years. Thus, the ANPP data is just for 2017, 2018, and 2019, correct?

Best,

Kate

[KW529]

7-10-2020 Hi Kate

Correct – only standing biomass for 2016 so we can’t get a good measure of preceding NPP (but it would have been high relative to the long term average and the following yeas as 2016 was really wet).

Best,

Uffe