A workflow for reproducing mean benthic gas fluxes

Abstract

Long-term data sets provide unique opportunities to examine temporal variability of key ecosystem processes. The need for such data sets is becoming increasingly important as we try to quantify the impact of human activities across various scales and in some cases, as we try to determine the success of management interventions. Unfortunately, long-term benthic flux data sets for coastal ecosystems are rare and curating them is a challenge. If we wish to make our data available to others now and into the future, however, then we need to provide mechanisms that allow others to understand our methods, access the data, reproduce the results, and see updates as they become available. Here we use techniques, learned through the EarthCube Ontosoft Geoscience Paper of the Future project, to develop best practices to allow us to share a long-term data set of directly measured net sediment N2 fluxes and sediment oxygen demand at two sites in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island (USA). This technical report describes the process we used, the challenges we faced, and the steps we will take in the future to ensure transparency and reproducibility. By developing these data and software sharing tools we hope to help disseminate well-curated data with provenance as well as products from these data, so that the community can better assess how this temperate estuary has changed over time. We also hope to provide a data sharing model for others to follow so that long-term estuarine data are more easily shared and not lost over time.