Microbial Communities Across a Successional Gradient at Indiana Dunes National Park, 2015-2017

This soil and vegetation data were collected along a successional gradient at the Indiana Dunes National Park. Soil samples were processed for standard soil chemistry, texture, and nutrients. DNA extracted from soil samples were analyzed for bacterial communities using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing technique to understand the composition and distribution of these communities along the successional gradient. Soils samples were collected in 2015 and 2017. Vegetation data were collected only in 2017, as the vegetation was dormant in 2015. We collected the data to examine the relationships among soils, vegetation, and composition of the microbial communities along a dunal chronosequence. A dunal chronosequence is a series of coastal dunes that formed at different times thus a chrono-sequence. In such a sequence, the younger dunes are near the lakeshore and the older ones are inland. The raw metagenomic data can be accessed at the NCBI repository under the bioproject accession PRJNA658136.