The dataset contains the measures recorded during the the study "Floodplain forests are sensitive to salt-intrusion during summer droughts when dominated by Salix". The objective of this study was to investigate how seasonal timing and intensity of salt intrusion affect the growth and recovery of juvenile Salix alba and Alnus glutinosa trees in temperate European floodplain conditions. This was a controlled mesocosm experiment conducted from April 2022 to May 2023, in which different sets of 2–3-year-old trees were exposed for one week to either freshwater (control) or two salt concentrations (5 or 20 PSU) during each season (spring, summer, autumn, winter). Data collection involved monthly measurements of morphological traits (tree height, diameter, leaf number and condition), environmental variables (soil and water salinity), and final biomass (fresh and dry weight of above- and belowground parts) after harvest.
The data is divided in 3 csv files and the content is described in the README.txt file.
Brief description of the three csv files:
"seasonality_monthly.csv": measures taken monthly during the experiment.
"seasonality_watersalinity.csv": water salinity recorder monthly in the mesocosms.
"seasonality_biomass.csv": contains the biomass weights collected at the end of the experiment. The harvested biomass is stored at NIOZ.