Vegetation Inventory of Oak-Hickory Forest at Missouri Ozark (MOFLUX) Site: 2004-2017

Vegetation inventory observations have been taken during years 2004 through 2017 at the second-growth upland oak-hickory forest at the Missouri Ozark AmeriFlux (MOFLUX) site. The MOFLUX site is located in the University of Missouri Baskett Wildlife Research area (BWREA), situated in the Ozark Border Region of central Missouri, USA, and is part of the AmeriFlux network (site ID: US-MOz). During 2003–2004, 24 circular vegetation plots (each 0.08 hectares) were established and individuals with diameter at breast height (DBH; 1.3 meters (m) above the ground); >9 cm were inventoried. The plots were situated 50 m apart on 5 linear transects radiating out from the MOFLUX flux tower base in southeast, south, southwest, west and northwest directions—there were 5 plots per transect except for the northwest one, which had only 4 due to the presence of a small pond at the terminus (Fig. 1). On each plot, living individuals were identified with numbered aluminum tags, identified to species, measured for DBH, and geographic position measured using a global positioning system (GPS). In subsequent years, mortality observations are made at approximately monthly intervals during the growing season, ingrowth is added annually in the autumn, and DBH of all individuals is measured at two to three-year intervals, with DBH observations in the current record occurring in 2005, 2008, 2011, 2013, and 2016. Using these continuous observations of tree mortality along with predawn leaf water potential (Pallardy et al., 2018) at the MOFLUX site provide insight in how the mortality of important tree species vary and how such variations may be predicted. This dataset contains one data file in comma separate (.csv) format. Additional metadata are provided: one data dictionary and a file-level metadata file in comma separate (.csv) format and a user guide in PDF (*.pdf) format.