Spring Fen Vegetation and Groundwater Temperature Data from the 1960s to 2023

A longitudinal dataset from 134 vegetation plots in the southern Black Forest, Germany, originally surveyed in the 1960s and resurveyed in 2023. It contains bryophyte species composition and abundance data, harmonized across periods, alongside plot-level metadata like elevation and forest cover. Complementary spring water temperature measurements, originally from the 1980s and remeasured in 2023, capture seasonal and interannual variation for assessing long-term thermal change.

Use Cases

• Modeling climate change impacts on bryophyte communities based on species composition data from 1960s and 2023 surveys.
• Analyzing correlations between groundwater temperature change and vegetation shifts based on long-term temperature measurements.
• Studying the effects of environmental variables like elevation, slope, and forest cover on spring fen habitats.
• Assessing taxonomic harmonization and nomenclature changes in historical ecological data.

Strengths

• Long-term temporal coverage with data points from the 1960s, 1980s, and 2023.
• Data from 134 vegetation plots provides a substantial sample for analysis.
• High-resolution temperature loggers were used for recent spring water measurements.
• Species data is harmonized to account for taxonomic changes between survey periods.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific modeling tasks.
• Data is geographically limited to spring fen habitats in the southern Black Forest, Germany.

Provenance

Source

Konrad Greinwald via figshare.

Collection Method

Field surveys and measurements using high-resolution temperature loggers.

Time Range

1960s to 2023.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-06 10:42:31; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Spring fen habitats in the southern Black Forest, Germany.