Data from: Effects of growth rate, size, and light availability on tree survival across life stages: a demographic analysis accounting for missing values and small sample sizes

Background: Plant survival is a key factor in forest dynamics and survival
probabilities often vary across life stages. Studies specifically aimed at
assessing tree survival are unusual and so data initially designed for
other purposes often need to be used; such data are more likely to contain
errors than data collected for this specific purpose. Results: We
investigate the survival rates of ten tree species in a dataset designed
to monitor growth rates. As some individuals were not included in the
census at some time points we use capture-mark-recapture methods both to
allow us to account for missing individuals, and to estimate relocation
probabilities. Growth rates, size, and light availability were included as
covariates in the model predicting survival rates. The study demonstrates
that tree mortality is best described as constant between years and
size-dependent at early life stages and size independent at later life
stages for most species of UK hardwood. We have demonstrated that even
with a twenty-year dataset it is possible to discern variability both
between individuals and between species. Conclusions: Our work illustrates
the potential utility of the method applied here for calculating plant
population dynamics parameters in time replicated datasets with small
sample sizes and missing individuals without any loss of sample size, and
including explanatory covariates.