Restoration management strategies promote both plant biomass recovery and CO₂ absorption in the degraded grasslands of Southern China

Research Hypotheses and Objectives This study evaluated three distinct grassland restoration strategies (reseeding, chemical fertilization, and Burkholderia sp. biofertilization) under two core hypotheses: (1) all three management practices can effectively restore plant productivity and biomass in degraded southern China grasslands; and (2) these strategies can simultaneously enhance the $CO_2$ absorption and carbon sequestration capacity of the degraded ecosystem.

The dataset was gathered from a rigorous 3-year field experiment (2021–2023) established at an alpine artificial grassland platform in Zhaotong, Yunnan Province, China, characterized by highly weathered and strongly leached yellow-brown soils. The data encompasses two primary matrices: (1) plant community biomass profiles, including above-ground biomass (AGB), below-ground biomass (BGB, 0–20 cm depth), and total biomass (TB) collected via destructive harvesting; and (2) growing-season ecosystem CO2 fluxes, featuring net ecosystem exchange (NEE), ecosystem respiration (ER), and gross primary productivity (GPP) monitored in situ using a transparent assimilation chamber coupled with the LI-8100A Automated Soil CO2 Flux System.