10.5061/DRYAD.G7B3302
Clark, Deborah A.
University of Missouri
Clark, David B.
University of Missouri
Letcher, Susan G.
College of the Atlantic
Data from: Three decades of annual growth, mortality, physical condition,
and microsite for ten tropical rainforest tree species
Dryad
dataset
2019
emergents
Hieronyma alchorneoides
Hymenolobium mesoamericanum
Dipteryx panamensis
Minquartia guianensis
La Selva
Cecropia obtusifolia
Simarouba amara
Costa Rica
Tropical trees
Lecythis ampla
physical damage
tropical rainforest
Pentaclethra macroloba
Cecropia insignis
TREES Project
Holocene
Balizia elegans
National Science Foundation
https://ror.org/021nxhr62
US NSF/LTREB DEB-1147367
2019-05-03T00:00:00Z
2019-05-03T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2394
2522504719 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
In lowland tropical rainforest, hundreds of tree species typically occur
within mesoscale landscapes (50-500 ha). There is no consensus ecological
theory that accounts for the coexistence of so many species with similar
morphologies and the same fundamental requirements of light, nutrients,
water, and physical space. In part this is due to the limited
understanding of post-establishment ecology for the vast majority of
tropical tree species. Of even more concern is the lack of understanding
of how these trees are responding to on-going atmospheric and climatic
changes. Here we present long-term data on the post-establishment ecology
of ten species of tropical rainforest trees that span a broad life-history
spectrum. The study site was upland (non-swamp) old-growth tropical wet
forest at the La Selva Biological Station (N.E. Costa Rica). Focal
individuals from established seedlings to mature trees were assessed
annually, with an emphasis on accuracy and long-term consistency of the
observations. The annual time-step, rare for longterm studies in tropical
rainforest, captures the typically abrupt changes in forest structure and
light environments, the frequent instances of major physical damage, and
the trees' responses to these events and to interannual and long-term
climatic variation. With the completion of the study in 2016, the data for
survivorship, growth, and microsite conditions span 4499 individuals and
34 years. The first ten years of these data were published as an
Ecology/Ecological Archives data paper in 2000 (Clark and Clark 2000),
with two subsequent update publications (Clark and Clark 2006, 2012). This
final update adds the final six years of observations, digitized field
comments, and histories of points of measurement on the trees. The
metadata now include the scanned original field data-sheets for the entire
study and a narrative detailing the annual qa/qc of the data. The data set
is unique for its scope (years of continuous annual measurements, number
of monitored individuals), the in-depth documentation, and the
unrestricted data access. The data have been used to study life history
patterns, tree ecology through ontogeny, and effects on tree performance
from interannual and long-term climatic and atmospheric change. They have
also contributed to numerous remote-sensing studies.
Clark et al. TREES Project field census sheets 1983-1990The original
census field sheets for the annual censuses of the TREES Project:
1983-1990 censuses.TREES Project field census sheets 1983-1990.zipClark et
al. TREES Project field census sheets 1991-2000The original census field
sheets for the annual censuses of the TREES Project: 1991-2000
censuses.TREES Project field census sheets 1991-2000.zipClark et al. TREES
Project field census sheets 2001-2010The original census field sheets for
the annual censuses of the TREES Project: 2001-2010 censuses.TREES Project
field census sheets 2001-2010.zipClark et al. TREES Project field census
sheets 2011-2013The original census field sheets for the annual censuses
of the TREES Project: 2011-2013 censuses.Trees Project field census sheets
2011-2013.zipClark et al. TREES Project field census sheets 2014-2016The
original census field sheets for the annual censuses of the TREES Project:
2014-2016 censuses.TREES Project field census sheets 2014-2016.zipDryad
Readme for field census sheets of the TREES Project
Costa Rica