Non-herbaceous perennial vegetation structure (DP1.10045.001)

This data product contains the quality-controlled, native sampling resolution data from in-situ structural measurements of live and standing dead non-herbaceous perennial plants, from all terrestrial NEON sites with qualifying vegetation. Non-herbaceous perennial plants include agave, cactus, ferns, ocotillo, palms, xerophyllum and yucca species. The exact measurements collected per individual depend on growth form, and these measurements are focused on biomass and productivity estimation, when suitable allometries exist, and estimation of volume. Tree Palms are the only non-herbaceous perennial individuals that are consistently mapped; smaller palms such as Serenoa repens may be mapped if no taller overstory is present in a given plot. Tagging is also generally dependent on growth form and species; qualifying individuals are tagged when tags can be efficiently relocated to enable longitudinal data collection. For example, palms are always tagged, large-stature cactus are tagged, small-stature cactus are not tagged, and ferns are never tagged. Individuals of all growth forms except tree palms may be subsampled according to a nested subplot approach in order to standardize the per plot sampling effort. Structure and mapping data are reported per individual per plot; sampling metadata, such as per growth form sampling area, are reported per plot. For additional details, see the user guide, protocols, and science design listed in the Documentation section in this data product's details webpage. Latency: The expected time from data and/or sample collection in the field to data publication is as follows, for each of the data tables (in days) in the downloaded data package. See the Data Product User Guide for more information. nst_perindividual: 90 vst_perplotperyear: 300