van Galen, L.G. orcid.org/0000-0002-6677-9462, Smith, G.R. orcid.org/0000-0003-3676-0821, Margenot, A.J. et al. (118 more authors) (2025) A global database of soil microbial phospholipid fatty acids and enzyme activities. Scientific Data, 12. 1568. ISSN: 2052-4463
Abstract
Soil microbes drive ecosystem function and play a critical role in how ecosystems respond to global change. Research surrounding soil microbial communities has rapidly increased in recent decades, and substantial data relating to phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) and potential enzyme activity have been collected and analysed. However, studies have mostly been restricted to local and regional scales, and their accuracy and usefulness are limited by the extent of accessible data. Here we aim to improve data availability by collating a global database of soil PLFA and potential enzyme activity measurements from 12,258 georeferenced samples located across all continents, 5.1% of which have not previously been published. The database contains data relating to 113 PLFAs and 26 enzyme activities, and includes metadata such as sampling date, sample depth, and soil pH, total carbon, and total nitrogen. This database will help researchers in conducting both global- and local-scale studies to better understand soil microbial biomass and function.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2025. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) NE/T012226/1 |
Date Deposited: | 01 Oct 2025 13:14 |
Last Modified: | 01 Oct 2025 13:14 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Nature Research |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41597-025-05759-2 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:232404 |