CITATION TO DATABASE: Condit, R., Lao, S., Pérez, R., Dolins, S.B., Foster, R.B. Hubbell, S.P. 2012. Barro Colorado Forest Census Plot Data, 2012 Version. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.5479/data.bci.20130603
CO-AUTHORS: Stephen Hubbell and Richard Condit have been principal investigators of the project for over 30 years. They are fully responsible for the field methods and data quality. As such, both request that data users contact them and invite them to be co-authors on publications relying on the data. More recent versions of the data, often with important updates, can be requested directly from R. Condit (conditr@gmail.com).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The following should be acknowledged in publications for contributions to the 50-ha plot project:
R. Foster as plot founder and the first botanist able to identify so many trees in a diverse forest; R. Pérez and S. Aguilar for species identification; S. Lao for data management; S. Dolins for database design; plus hundreds of field workers for the census work, now over 2 million tree measurements; the National Science Foundation, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and MacArthur Foundation for the bulk of the financial support.
File 1. RoutputFull.pdf: Detailed documentation of the 'full' tables in Rdata format (File 5).
File 2. RoutputStem.pdf: Detailed documentation of the 'stem' tables in Rdata format (File 7).
File 3. ViewFullTable.zip: A zip archive with a single ascii text file named ViewFullTable.txt holding a table with all census data from the BCI 50-ha plot. Each row is a single measurement of a single stem, with columns indicating the census, date, species name, plus tree and stem identifiers; all seven censuses are included. A full description of all columns in the table can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.5479/data.bci.20130604 (ViewFullTable, pp. 21-22 of the pdf).
File 4. ViewTax.txt: An ascii text table with information on all tree species recorded in the 50-ha plot. There are columns with taxonomics names (family, genus, species, and subspecies), plus the taxonomic authority. The column 'Mnemonic' gives a shortened code identifying each species, a code used in the R tables (Files 5, 7). The column 'IDLevel' indicates the depth to which the species is identified: if IDLevel='species', it is a fully identified, but if IDLevel='genus', the genus is known but not the species. IDLevel can also be 'family', or 'none' in case the species is not even known to family.
File 5. bci.full.Rdata31Aug2012.zip: A zip archive holding seven R Analytical Tables, versions of the BCI 50 ha plot census data in R format. These are designed for data analysis. There are seven files, one for each of the 7 censuses: 'bci.full1.rdata' for the first census through 'bci.full7.rdata' for the seventh census. Each of the seven files is a table having one record per individual tree, and each includes a record for every tree found over the entire seven censuses (i.e. whether or not they were observed alive in the given census, there is a record). Detailed documentation of these tables is given in RoutputFull.pdf (File 1).
File 6. bci.spptable.rdata: A list of the 1064 species found across all tree plots and inventories in Panama, in R format. This is a superset of species found in the BCI censuses: every BCI species is included, plus additional species never observed at BCI. The column 'sp' in this table is a code identifying the species in the R census tables (File 5, 7), and matching 'mnemomic' in ViewFullTable (File 3).
File 7. bci.stem.Rdata31Aug2012.zip: A zip archive holding seven R Analytical Tables, versions of the BCI 50 ha plot census data in R format. These are designed for data analysis. There are seven files, one for each of the 7 censuses: 'bci.stem1.rdata' for the first census through 'bci.stem7.rdata' for the seventh census. Each of the seven files is a table having one record per individual stem, necessary because some individual trees have more than one stem. Each includes a record for every stem found over the entire seven censuses (i.e. whether or not they were observed alive in the given census, there is a record). Detailed documentation of these tables is given in RoutputStem.pdf (File 2).
File 8. TSMAttributes.txt: An ascii text table giving full descriptions of measurement codes, which are also referred to as TSMCodes. These short codes are used in the column 'code' in R tables and in the column 'ListOfTSM' in ViewFullTable.txt, in both cases with individual codes separated by commas.
File 9. bci_31August2012_mysql.zip: A zip archive holding one file, 'bci.sql', which is a mysqldump of the complete MySQL database (version 5.0.95, http://www.mysql.com) created 31 August 2012. The database includes data collected from seven censuses of the BCI 50 ha plot plus censuses of many additional plots elsewhere in Panama, plus transects where only species identifications were collected and trees were not tagged nor measurements made. Detailed documentation of all tables within the database can be found at (http://dx.doi.org/10.5479/data.bci.20130604). This version of the data is intended for experienced SQL users; for most, the R Analytical Tables in Rtables.zip are more useful.
