Environmental heterogeneity on landslide slopes affects the long-term recoveries of forest ecosystem components

Landslides are a common disturbance in mountainous areas of the world. Transporting and accumulating landslide debris, i.e., disturbance legacies, such as coarse woody debris (CWD), vegetation patches, and surface soils, generate a heterogeneous environment along slopes (zones), which are suggested to affect forest recovery. However, the long-term changes in forest ecosystems after landslides remain unknown, particularly zone-dependent change patterns. We aimed to reveal the differences in the changes in live trees, understory vegetation, CWD, and soils among zones by surveying forests with landslide ages (years since the landslide) ranging from 3 to 74 years and reference stands. The increase in live tree aboveground biomass occurred at a faster rate at the lower part of the slopes where the disturbance legacies were rich and surface soils were stabilized due to the smaller slope angle. Chronological patterns of understory vegetation amounts were determined by the differences in distur..., , , # Environmental heterogeneity on landslide slopes affects the long-term recoveries of forest ecosystem components

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.m63xsj45n](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.m63xsj45n)

The raw data used in the following publication:
Hotta W, Morimoto J, Yanai S, Uchida Y, Nakamura F (2024) Environmental heterogeneity on landslide slopes affects the long-term recoveries of forest ecosystem components. CATENA 234: 107578 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2023.107578

We surveyed live trees, coarse woody debris, understory vegetation, and soil carbon and nitrogen.
We selected slopes where landslides occurred in 2018, 2003, 1981, and before 1947. We also selected reference stands.
We divided each slope into three zones (i.e., the initiation, the transport, and the deposition) from top to bottom.

## Description of the data and file structure

tree\_analysis\_revise.csv: the raw data of the live tree survey.
cwd2.csv: the raw data of the coarse woody debris survey.
understory\_a...