Plot-level understory vegetation and fire-history data from the Long Island Central Pine Barrens

The data support the results reported in the paper titled “Drivers of understory vegetation structure in a fire-suppressed ecosystem” (published in 2026 in the IOP Environmental Research: Ecology). This dataset contains the plot-level observations used in analyses of understory vegetation structure in the Long Island Central Pine Barrens. Variables include forest type, time since last fire, categorical fire-history classes, canopy openness, tree basal area, organic matter, understory cover, vascular species richness, and additional structural and compositional covariates used in the paper. Plot coordinates are not included in the public file for site privacy and land-management reasons; requests for precise location data should be directed to Brookhaven National Laboratory.