SuperSites Data Portal

Using the 100 m tape measure and the Gentry Transects as guidance, the core 1 hectare was subdivided in circa 12 m wide strips running East-West. Doing one strip at a time (starting in SE corner of the plot), all standing dead trees (> 10 cm DBH) within the core 1 hectare were fitted with a numbered aluminium tag. The tag was attached to the Eastern side of the trunk using stainless steel wire inserted into the bark with a custom made tool (i.e. small screwdriver with small notch). Trees with multiple stems were given multiple tags if forking below breast height. The species were identified by Dr. Tony Haigh. The dead status of the tree was assessed by absence of green foliage.

The diameter at breast height (DBH) of all tagged stems within the core 1 hectare were measured using a DBH tape.

The maximum height of all trees within the core 1 hectare was measured using a Haglof Vertex Laser. This device calculates tree height from two distance measures (from the observer to the base and top of the tree) and the angle between the two distance measurements. The maximum height refers to the top 0.5 m of the tree because the Vertex must be aimed at sufficiently dense foliage and branches in order to make a measurement. After this maximum height measurement the proportion of the tree height greater than 10cm in diameter was estimated and the tree height measured by the Haglof Vertex Laser was multiplied by this proportion. When the volume of the segment was calculated dbh was used as the base of a tapered cylinder. This means that the volume of the stem only was calculated and any major branches over 10cm in diameter were not included in the calculation.

Data Records. A printed paper data recording sheet was used to record observations in the field. The observations were entered into a local Excel spreadsheet and then formatted according to the standard ASN spreadsheet (SuperSites_Data_Spreadsheet_Standards-20150212.xlsx). The observations from that workbook were exported as:

“asn_cblp_standing_dead_tree_core_1_ha_20140328_data_table.csv” and submitted to TERN along with an accompanying data table description:

“asn_cblp_standing_dead_tree_20140328_data_deposit_form.docx”