Forest age map, tree species traits and Landsat phenology metrics for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands

This data publication contains data on tree species functional traits, forest stand age and vegetation phenology used for modeling and analysis of small tree survival across a heterogeneous tropical landscape (Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands). Trees are at increased risk of mortality from increased heat, drought, fire, storms and other causes. However, predictions of tree mortality are highly uncertain. Tabular data include: 1) wood specific gravity values collected for this study for 176 trees of 104 tree species (oven dry weight/green volume); 2) citations and taxonomic basis for assigning the categories of tree species mycorrhizal putative status; 3) forest-cover data gathered from orthorectified pairs of aerial photos from the years 1936-1937 for Puerto Rico forest inventory plots that were forested in the years 2001-2008; and 4) tree species functional groups and functional traits used for modeling small tree survival across Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands (PRVI). Spatial data include: 1) a spatial raster dataset representing forest stand age class circa the year 2001 in GeoTIFF (TIF) format; and 2) a spatial raster dataset (TIF) of four metrics of average annual phenology of vegetation greenness from 2010-2014 for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands produced from Landsat satellite imagery.
These data were collected to analyze tree demography, diversity, productivity and nutrient cycling, including carbon storage, to better manage and understand Caribbean forests and tropical forests in general.
For more information about this study and these data, see Helmer et al. (2023). These data were published on 01/06/2023. On 07/24/2023 minor changes were made to the metadata to update out of date URLs as well as update a reference that is now available.