RAINFOR GEM Intensive Plots Manual (pdf) - University of Oxford

9. TOPOGRAPHY, TREE MAPS, BOTANICAL DETERMINATION ANDWOOD DENSITYA botanical survey is necessary and should be carried out as soon as possible after the first census and afterevery recensus (Condit 1998), depending on the local availability of trained botanical personnel. Note that itmay be necessary to make surveys both in the wet and dry seasons to increase the likelihood of collectingreproductive material for species identification.A protocol has been formulated for measuring wood densities across a plot once botanical information isavailable http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/projects/rainfor/manuals/wood_density_english%5B1%5D.pdf(developed from the outline at Phillips et al. 2009:13). However, note that we do not allow tree cores to betaken within any permanent plot (the same species can be sampled outside the plots if necessary).A topographical survey is carried out as standard in SIGEO-CTFS (Condit 1998) and would be desirable, butis not currently required by RAINFOR-GEM.A tree map (i.e. measuring the x,y coordinates of each stem within each subplot) is clearly desirable andessential for studies where precise distances to stems must be calculated (e.g. fine-scale seed dispersal studies;one is carried out as standard in SIGEO-CTFS, Condit 1998). However, if all that is required is locating treesinside the plot for remeasurement, (i) the census itself shows which subplot contains each stem and (ii) after thefirst census the trees are in sequence along the known tree tagging route (see figure in §1.3) and therefore easyto locate quickly even without a map. After several censuses, new recruits mean that the trees are no longer ‘inorder’ so a tree map begins to become more useful (e.g. two examples are shown at the start of §1), howeveruntil that point this is desirable rather than essential.78