Soil nutrient transect from Ngorongoro crater to the centre of Serengeti

Abstract The Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro National Park are well-known for their migratory herds of large herbivores. These migrations are suggested to be due to different nutritional needs of the large herbivores over the year. The nutritional needs of the large herbivores are fulfilled by the different nutrient content of the grassland biomass. Soil nutrient availability is at least partly controlling the nutrient content of the grassland biomass despite plant-specific nutrient uptake mechanisms. Despite lot of data existing on the nutrient content of the grassland biomass in this area, less is known about the nutrient availability of the soils, especially for the transect from the Ngorongoro crater via the Ngorongoro Conservation area to the centre of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. Here we present a dataset on the availability of carbon, nitrogen, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, manganese and iron in the soils along this transect at 16 sampling points. Our data clearly show that the nutrient availability in the soils along this transect strongly differs with higher values of aluminium, silicon, potassium and calcium near the border of Serengeti National Park. These differences in soil nutrient availability might be the reason for different nutrient content in grassland biomass in certain areas, hence potentially affecting the migration of the herds of large herbivores as found by other studies. As our dataset is not comprehensive, we call for collection and analysis of more samples and also soil profile analysis in this area as our dataset is limited.