DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cz8w9gjbb
title: Data from: Differing agents of physical damage to artificial seedlings in remnant and restored forests

description: We tested the importance of physical damage to seedlings as a bottleneck
 to natural regeneration in restored tropical forest using an artificial
 seedling experiment. After one year more artificial seedlings had
 been damaged in restored forests (17.6 ± 2.6% SE) compared
 to remnant forests (12.7 ± 1.1% SE), primarily due to greater
 frequency of woody debris falling from planted trees. Vertebrate
 damage was more common in remnant forests.
description: <strong>Artificial seedling
 experiment</strong> We placed 1024 artificial
 seedling models in the eight restored plots and five remnant forests in
 early May 2022. In most locations, we placed a total of 64 artificial
 seedlings (one replicate), except for one remnant forest area where we
 placed 256 seedlings in four replicates of 64 each that were separated by
 a minimum of 17 m. Within each replicate, artificial seedlings were
 distributed in four groups of 16 with ≥ 10 m separation. Each group of
 seedlings was distributed in an X pattern with ≥ 2 m between each
 artificial seedling (Figure S1) and minor location adjustments to
 accommodate the presence of obstacles such as large trees.
 Each artificial seedling consisted of two 18-cm long × 0.5-cm
 diameter plastic straws following the design of Clark and Clark (1989) and
 Rosin et al. (2017), and painted pink or yellow to facilitate observation
 in the field. The straws were stapled in a "T" shape and
 attached to a 13-cm "root" wire using a plastic cable tie and a
 small piece of electrical tape, with 3 cm of overlap to allow burial 10 cm
 in the soil. We monitored artificial seedlings over a
 12-month period, monthly for the first seven months (June-December 2022)
 and subsequently at months nine and 12 (February and May 2023). We
 followed Clark and Clark (1989) for the classification of damaged or
 undamaged artificial models; the artificial model was considered as
 damaged if at least one of the T arms touched the ground.
  We classified the types of seedling damage (Figure 1) in the
 following manner when possible. Observations of animal activity, such as
 digging and trampling were categorized as vertebrate damage. Woody debris
 refers to crushing by branches or trunks, whereas leaf damage refers to
 when leaves damaged and covered artificial seedlings in the absence of
 woody debris. Water damage refers to when seedlings were excavated by
 water flow and erosion.
description: # Data from: Differing agents of physical damage to artificial seedlings
 in remnant and restored forests
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.cz8w9gjbb](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.cz8w9gjbb) ## Description of the data Results from a year-long artificial seedling experiment in restored forests ("plantations") and reference remnant forests (8 replicates for each habitat type, 64 artificial seedlings in each replicate). **Date last modified:** 17 December 2024 ### Files and variables **File:** artificial_seedling_data_2023-05-22.csv **Description:** Outcomes from year long artificial experiment. Each row represents the status of a single artificial seedling at a particular timepoint. Note that for analysis, only the final outcomes (May 2023, Monitoreo = 9) were used. ##### Variables * date: date of data collection in format YYYY-MM-DD.  * Monitoreo: numeric variable indicating the round of monitoring. Values are 1-9. * Trt: categorical variable indicating the treatment (habitat type). P = plantation, R = remnant forest. * Sitio: site code.  LL1, LL2, LL3, LL4 were remnant forest replicates established for this study (note that different codes were used for paper data sheets). The remaining codes correspond to sites described in Holl, K. D., J. L. Reid, R. J. Cole, F. Oviedo-Brenes, J. A. Rosales, and R. A. Zahawi. 2020. Applied nucleation facilitates tropical forest recovery: Lessons learned from a 15-year study. Journal of Applied Ecology 57:2316-2328. * quad: Numeric variable from 1 to 4. Indicates which quadrant (subplot) the artificial seedling was placed in. * Fila: indicates the position of the artificial seedling relative to the sub-plot. In combination with Trt, Sitio, and quad, uniquely identifies each artificial seedling.  * present: binary variable indicating whether the artificial seedling was present. 1 = present, 0 = absent. * Daños: categorical variable indicating the cause of damage. Damage codes are as follows: * 0 = undamaged, D = unknown (desconocido), H = water (hídrico), T = woody debris (tronco), V = vertebrate, Desraizado = uprooted ( analysis script lumps with woody debris), Hojas = leaves.   * Comments: text variable with comments on observation ## Code/software The data were prepared in Excel v 16.9.1, but can be viewed in any software able to open a csv file.