Demography of the understory herb Heliconia acuminata (Heliconiaceae) in an experimentally fragmented tropical landscape

Habitat fragmentation remains a major focus of research by ecologists decades after being put forward as a threat to the integrity of ecosystems. While studies have documented myriad biotic changes in fragmented landscapes, including the local extinction of species from fragments, the demographic mechanisms underlying these extinctions are rarely known. However, many of them – especially in lowland tropical forests – are thought to be driven by one of two mechanisms: (1) reduced recruitment in fragments resulting from changes in the diversity or abundance of pollinators and seed dispersers or (2) increased rates of individual mortality in fragments due to dramatically altered abiotic conditions, especially near fragment edges. Unfortunately, there have been few tests of these potential mechanisms due to the paucity of long-term and comprehensive demographic data collected in both forest fragments and continuous forest sites. Here we report 11 years (1998-2009) of demographic data from p..., The plants in each plot were censused annually, at which time we recorded, identified, marked, and measured new seedlings, identified any previously marked plants that died, and recorded the size of surviving individuals. Each plot was also surveyed 4-5 times during the flowering season to identify reproductive plants and record the number of inflorescences each produced., The files are in .csv files and no special programs or software are required to open them. , # HDP\_survey.csv and HDP\_plots.csv

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## Associated Data Paper

The complete metadata for these data sets, including detailed descriptions of why and how the data were collected and validated, are in the following Data Paper:

Bruna,E.M., M.Uriarte, M.Rosa Darrigo, P.Rubim, C.F.Jurinitz, E.R.Scott, O.Ferreira da Silva, & W.John Kress. 2023. Demography of the understory herb *Heliconia acuminata* (Heliconiaceae) in an experimentally fragmented tropical landscape. *Ecology*.

## Overview

This file comprises 11 years (1998-2009) of demographic data from populations of the Amazonian understory herb *Heliconia acuminata* (LC Rich.) found at Brazil's Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP). The dataset comprises >66,000 plant x year records of 8586 plants, including 3464 seedlings established after the first census. Seven populations were in experimentally isolated fragments (one in each of four 1-ha fragments and one in each of three 10-ha fragments), with the re...