Japanese Old-Growth Forest Dynamics: Tree Growth and Climate (2004-2018)

11,560 spatially mapped trees across 19 one-hectare plots in Japan were monitored from 2004 to 2018 to study climate impacts on forest dynamics. The dataset includes repeated measurements of tree growth, allowing analysis of how water availability and temperature affect negative conspecific and heterospecific density dependence. It provides a basis for investigating mechanisms of species coexistence under climate change in old-growth natural forests.

Use Cases

• Modeling the effects of temporal climate variability on tree growth based on repeated inventory measurements.
• Analyzing how negative conspecific density dependence (NCDD) and negative heterospecific density dependence (NHDD) vary with water availability.
• Investigating differences in density dependence mechanisms between sapling and adult tree life stages.
• Studying the role of climate warming and water availability in stabilizing species coexistence in forests.

Strengths

• Contains data from 11,560 individually mapped trees, enabling spatially explicit analysis.
• Covers a 15-year time series (2004-2018) from repeated measurements in 19 permanent one-hectare plots.
• Includes associated R analysis code and a metadata file describing variables.

Limitations

• Column names and a precise row count are not provided in the available metadata, limiting immediate understanding of data structure.
• The dataset's spatial coverage is limited to old-growth natural forests in Japan.
• Relies on inferred data types (tabular, time-series) from descriptions rather than explicit schema.

Provenance

Source

Rongxu Shan

Collection Method

Repeated measured forest inventory from spatially mapped plots in old-growth natural forests.

Time Range

2004 to 2018

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-03-20.

Geography

Japan