DOI: 10.25573/data.14417915.v1
title: Shapefiles of canopy disturbances for the 50-ha plot on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, for 2014-2019

description: Shapefiles of canopy disturbances for the 50-ha Smithsonian ForestGEO plot on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, for 46 successive time intervals (47 dates) between 2 October 2014 and 28 November 2019. We defined a canopy disturbance as a substantial decrease in canopy height in a contiguous patch of canopy occurring over one measurement interval. We identified canopy disturbances through a combination of analysis of the canopy surface model changes and visual interpretation of the orthomosaics. We first differenced surface elevation models for successive dates to obtain a raster of the canopy height changes for the associated interval. We then pre-delineated major canopy disturbances by filtering for areas in which canopy height decreased more than 10 m in contiguous areas of at least 25 m<sup>2</sup>, and that had an area-to-perimeter ratio greater than 0.6. We note that 25 m<sup>2</sup> is the minimum gap area used in previous studies of this site by Brokaw (1982) and Hubbell et al. (1999). The area-to-perimeter condition removes artifacts associated with slight shifts in the measured positions of individual trees from one image set to another, whether due to wind or alignment errors (note that this criterion involves a combination of shape and size). Finally, we systematically examined 1-ha square subplots for each pair of successive dates and edited the pre-delineated polygons, removed false positives, and added visible new canopy disturbances that were not previously delineated (whether because they were too small in area or in canopy height drop). We also classified disturbances as being due to treefalls (a whole previously live tree fell, creating a clearly visible gap on the forest floor, or the whole live crown disappeared), branchfalls (a portion of a live crown broke), or standing dead trees disintegrating based on visual inspection of the orthomosaics. Before and after orthomosaic classifications are shown in Figure S2 of the associated Biogeosciences article by Araujo et al. <br><br> These data are licensed under CC BY, meaning use of the data is allowed so long as attribution is given via citation. These data should be cited either as an individual dataset or as part of the larger collection: Araujo, Raquel F., Samuel Grubinger, Milton Garcia, Jonathan P. Dandois, and Helene C. Muller-Landau. 2021. Shapefiles of canopy disturbances for the 50-ha plot on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, for 2014-2019. Smithsonian Figshare. DOI:10.25573/data.14417915orAraujo, Raquel F., Samuel Grubinger, Milton Garcia, Jonathan P. Dandois, and Helene C. Muller-Landau. 2021. Collection of datasets: Strong temporal variation in treefall and branchfall rates in a tropical forest is related to extreme rainfall: results from 5 years of monthly drone data for a 50-ha plot. Smithsonian Figshare. DOI: 10.25573/data.c.5389043<br>These datasets were used in the following peer-reviewed journal article:Araujo, R. F., S. Grubinger, C. H. S. Celes, R. I. Negrón-Juárez, M. Garcia, J. P. Dandois, and H. C. Muller-Landau. 2021. Strong temporal variation in treefall and branchfall rates in a tropical forest is related to extreme rainfall: results from 5 years of monthly drone data for a 50-ha plot. Biogeosciences.<br>The code used to analyze these data for this article are available in GitHub, at https://github.com/Raquel-Araujo/gap_dynamics_BCI50ha<br><br>Author contribution for datasets for 2014-2015: Helene C. Muller-Landau conceived the research, wrote the grant proposal that funded the research, and designed data collection. Jonathan Dandois constructed the drones, led drone data collection, performed photogrammetry processing, and did preliminary horizontal alignment. Samuel Grubinger finalized horizontal and vertical alignment and identified canopy disturbances. Raquel F. Araujo revised canopy disturbances and classified them as branchfalls, treefalls, or standing dead trees. Author contribution for datasets for 2016-2019: Helene C. Muller-Landau conceived the research and designed the data collection. Milton Garcia led drone data collection and processed drone imagery. Raquel F. Araujo performed horizontal and vertical alignment, identified canopy disturbances, and classified disturbances as branchfalls, treefalls, or standing dead trees. Acknowledgments: We thank Marino Ramirez, Pablo Ramos, Paulino Villareal and others for assistance with drone data collection; and Milton Solano for assistance with data processing and organization. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Smithsonian Institution Competitive Grants Program for Science; the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments-Tropics, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research; and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute fellowship program. Kristina Anderson-Teixeira, Stephanie Bolman, Richard Condit, Stuart Davies, Matteo Detto, Jefferson Hall, Patrick Jansen, Stefan Schnitzer, Edmund Tanner, and S. Joseph Wright were co-PIs on the original Smithsonian proposal, and we thank them for their contributions to the proposal and input on the research. <br>