These data concern the study 'Biogeography of soil bacteria and archaea across France' Karimi B, Terrat S, Dequiedt S, Saby NPA, Horrigue W, Lelièvre M, Nowak V, Jolivet C, Arrouays D, Wincker P, Cruaud C, Bispo A, Maron PA, Bouré NCP, Ranjard L. Sci Adv. 2018 Jul 4;4(7):eaat1808. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aat1808 and is based on data from the RMQS program (French Soil Quality Monitoring Network).

The French Soil Quality Monitoring Network (RMQS) is a national program for the assessment and long-term monitoring of the quality of French soils. This network is based on the monitoring of 2240 sites representative of French soils and their land use. These sites are spread over the whole French territory (metropolitan and overseas) along a systematic square grid of 16 km x 16 km cells. The network covers a broad spectrum of climatic, soil and land-use conditions (croplands, permanent grasslands, woodlands, orchards and vineyards, natural or scarcely anthropogenic land and urban parkland). The physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil are measured on each site. These soil analyses were carried out by the Soil Analysis Laboratory of INRAE (Arras, France). The spatial and temporal variability of soil properties are explained by biophysical variables, sources of contamination, history of land-use and management practices on each plot.

The first sampling campaign in metropolitan France took place from 2000 to 2009 and the second campaign has begun in 2016. At each site, 25 core samples were taken by layer with an auger within a 20 m × 20 m plot and combined into a composite sample. Analyses used in this study only concern the surface layer (generally 0–30 cm layer) of samplings from the first campaign in metropolitan France.

The dataset published contains all the raw data used in the statistical analysis in order to make them available for any further study. The table contains soil properties, observations on land use, and coordinates.

We warn the user that coordinates published here are not the right coordinates, the RMQS site can be located until 1 km around this point. Real coordinates can not be made publicly available because of confidential information.