DOI: 10.5061/dryad.g7b3302
title: Data from: Three decades of annual growth, mortality, physical condition, and microsite for ten tropical rainforest tree species

description: 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.
description: 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