Soil biogeochemical measurements from a long-term (60+ year) herbivore exclusion experiment near Utqiaġvik, Alaska, 2021

We conducted a 60+ year herbivore exclusion experiment to better understand the long-term responses of belowground biogeochemistry to changing herbivore populations in the Arctic. This dataset presents a suite of soil biogeochemical measurements in response to 60+ years of herbivore exclusion in wet, moist, and dry landcover classes near the town of Utqiaġvik, Alaska. The data was collected during peak growing season in 2021 from plots that have excluded herbivores and paired control plots. The 12 herbivore exclusion fences were originally constructed in 1954 and are made of 2 meter (m) x 2 m fine wire mesh with paired control plots set up within 5m of the fenced plots. 5 centimeter (cm) diameter cores of the upper 5cm of soil were collected, homogenized, and used for all biogeochemical measurements.