NATURDATA.DK – Danish monitoring program of vegetation and chemical plant and soil data from non-forested terrestrial habitat types

Abstract

Vegetation and chemical plant and soil data from 18 terrestrial non-forested natural habitat types have been collected each year since 2004 (Table 1). Presently, cover data of plant species measured by pinpoint (16 grid points in 0.5 m x 0.5 m frame) and plant frequency data (5 m circles) exist for more than 50,000 plots; the measuring of chemical properties in plant, soil, and water samples has been less intense. Presently there are more than 12,000 registrations of carbon content and 57,000 measurements of pH in topsoil. Soils are always samples from the top 5 cm. On heathland habitats the thickness of the mor layer is measured. All data are georeferenced and can be accessed at http://www.naturdata.dk/ The data comprises approximately 1,200 sites both within and outside of Natura 2000 areas. At each site the measurements were made at 20-60 randomly positioned plots. 70% of the plots have been revisited each year, whereas 30 % have only been visited once. Each year a total number of additional 5,000 sample plots and registrations will be performed. The protocols for the different measurement types (in Danish) may be downloaded from http://www.dmu.dk/fileadmin/Attachments/TAN1_106_01_FDCNY1.pdf. This report describes the available content in the vegetation-plot database NATURDATA.DK (GIVD ID EU-DK-001).