Open data for assessing habitats degree of conservation at plot level. An example dataset of forest structural attributes in Val d'Agri (Basilicata, Southern Italy)

We provide a georeferenced dataset of vertical and horizontal structure of forest types belonging to 4 habitat types, sensu Council Directive 92/43/EEC. The dataset includes structural indicators commonly linked to old-growth forests in Europe, in  particular the amount of standing and lying deadwood. We collected data on 32 plots (24 of 225 m2, and 8 of 100 m2, according to different forests type) during spring and summer of 2022, in Val d’Agri (Basilicata, Southern Italy). The dataset we provide follows the common national standard for field data collection in forest habitat types, published by ISPRA in 2016 (https://www.isprambiente.gov.it/public_files/direttiva-habitat/Manuale-142-2016.pdf) with the aim to promote a greater homogeneity in assessment of habitat conservation status at Country and biogeographical level, as requested by the Habitats Directive.

Data were acquired by using a free Android application (VegApp, (https://vegapp.de/), and standardized field survey forms.

The selection of the location of the sample sites were spatially balanced by using the sofware QGis vers. 3.22 (http://qgis.osgeo.org)

plots_Table1 shows the characteristics of the sample sites, and information on type of management, when available.

plots_Table2 provides the description and the measuring unit of all the attributes included in the dataset at plot level. It includes parameters used for assessing old-growth forests, linking them to the main type forests management, in order to both select indicators useful for assessing the conservation degree of forest habitat types, and identify good practices for nature conservation in these ecosystems.

plots_Table3 contains information on living trees and deadwood at plot level.

Trees describes the dataset related to single-tree data, and it contains the following fields for all living trees, exceeding 10 cm DBH, occurring in the plots. The nomenclature follows the Italian checklist available at https://dryades.units.it/floritaly/

The shapefile "plots" contains the same information included in plots_Table1.