DOI: 10.5061/dryad.ngf1vhhsn
title: Abundance of trees and seedlings, climatic, and soil variables in 36 20x20 m permanent plots in peri-urban Andean forests of Colombia

description: The study was conducted on the Eastern Andean Cordillera of Colombia, in
 remnant forests occurring in the high-plain where Bogotá lies, one of the
 largest cities in Latin America. The high-plain covers an area of ​​about
 185,000 ha at an average altitude of 2600 meters above sea level (m
 a.s.l.). We selected six study sites, distributed in the Eastern and
 Western slopes of the mountain range that surrounds the high-plain, which
 exhibit different climatic and edaphic characteristics. Five of the sites
 were located in the suburban municipalities of Soacha (So), San Francisco
 (Sf), Guasca (Gu), Tabio (Ta), and the last one, Torca (To), located in a
 large forest fragment at the periphery of Bogotá. Sites were selected so
 that they encompassed both early- and late-successional or old-growth
 forest patches.  Within each site, we established three 20 m x 20
 m plots in early-successional forests (E) and three 20 m x 20 m plots in
 late-successional (L) for a total of 36 permanent plots. Here, we present
 climatic and soil variables for each plot and also the abundances of all
 tree, shrub, palm, and tree-fern individuals with DAH&gt; 5 cm
 included in each plot. For simplicity we refer to these as “trees” (-t).
 Within each plot, we additionally established four subplots of 2 m x 2 m,
 where we tagged and measured all seedlings&gt; 5 cm in height and DAH
 ≤ 1 cm; we also present the abundances of the seedlings (-s). Vouchers
 were collected for each tree and seedling species or morphospecies and
 identified with the help of an expert botanist and using the resources of
 the herbarium of the Bogotá Botanical Garden (JBB). Vouchers specimens
 were stored at the herbarium of the Alexander von Humboldt Biological
 Resources Research Institute (FMB). Overall, we recorded Vouchers that
 were not identified to species were assigned a standardized morphospecies
 and were all included in the analyzes.
description: Climatic
 variables for each plot were estimated using the National Climatic Source,
 which is based on 2046 weather stations in Colombia and produces monthly
 data at ~90 m spatial resolution
 (<i>http://institucional.ideam.gov.co/jsp/1769</i>). We
 selected seven variables that included mean annual values of diurnal range
 temperatures (mean of monthly (max temp - min temp), MDR, ºC), mean annual
 temperature (MAT, ºC), total annual precipitation (TAP, mm), relative
 humidity (RH, %), water vapor pressure (VH<sub>2</sub>O, KPa),
 solar radiation (SR,
 kJm<sup>-2</sup>day<sup>-1</sup>), and wind speed
 (WS, ms-1). Soil variables were
 measured from composite samples of five soil cores collected at the four
 corners and the center of each plot and at a depth of 10-30 cm (after
 removal of the top litter layer). Samples were analyzed for 14 variables:
 available cations (Ca, K, Mg, Na, meq ·100g<sup>-1</sup>),
 cation exchange capacity (CEC), exchangeable acidity (Al, meq
 ·100g<sup>-1</sup>), organic carbon (%), particle size
 distribution (clay, sand, silt: %), total nitrogen (N, %), pH, available
 phosphorus (P, mg·kg<sup>-1</sup>) and bulk density (g·cm-3)
 at the Laboratorio de Aguas y Suelos of the Universidad Nacional de
 Colombia, Bogotá.