Long-term plant invasion in disturbed and undisturbed forests: species richness, frequency, and abundance

This data publication contains understory vegetation measured on 23 80+ years of age mature second-growth stands and 12 15-year old clearcut stands on the Cheat Ranger District of the Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia, USA. These data were sampled every 5-6 years from 2001-2017 (for mature stands) and 2002-2018 for clearcut stands. Stands were randomly selected but stratified across three land types that followed a moisture gradient. Data include plant species cover for both native and invasive nonnative plants in 2002 and 2018, as well as stand-level measurements of frequency and cover of invasive plant species measured multiple times between 2001 and 2018.
The purpose of this study was to determine how invasive and native plant species interact in response to changing environmental conditions and disturbances. This study is one of several studies to examine the effects of invasive plants on forest ecosystems and how best to ameliorate their impacts.
For more information about this study see Huebner et al. (2021)