Growth, biomass allocation and tissue nutrient concentrations of subtropical and tropical tree seedlings in response to experimental manipulation of soil phosphorus pools

This dataset reports metrics of plant growth, including height, total biomass and the biomass of component plant parts, and percentage root colonisation by mycorrhizas, for tree seedlings of eight tropical and seven subtropical growing in pots of soil that had been amended by addition of various sources of phosphorus (inorganic phosphate, adenosine monophosphate, phytic, or a mixture of all three) plus an unfertilized control treatment with no P additions. The aim of the experiment was to test the hypothesis that seedlings of species that associate with different types of root-inhabiting mycorrhizal fungi would respond differently to the range of P sources applied in the experiment. The experiments were conducted as part of a NERC Discovery Science project with the title Explaining niche separation in tropical forests: feedbacks from root-fungal symbioses and soil phosphorus partitioning led by Professor David Burslem (University of Aberdeen) reference NE/M004848/1.,The experiments were conducted by Xubing Liu with input from all authors. Data quality checks were conducted by all authors. The data-set provides raw data on growth metrics for each seedling, plus identifying codes for the two sites where the experiment was conducted, reflecting the tropical and subtropical origin of the seedlings, as well as experimental block, P treatment, botanical names for the tree species, and mycorrhizal type. Full details of materials and methods are provided in the paper reporting the results of the study (doi: 10.1111/ele.12939).,