Site: Niobrara
Country: USA
Site PI: Sabrina E. Russo
Data Type:
Availabilty: Approve
About Data: The 20.2-ha (560 x 360 m) Niobrara Forest Dynamics Plot (Niobrara FDP) is located at the Niobrara Valley Preserve (The Nature Conservancy) in Brown County, Nebraska, USA, roughly 25 miles east of the city of Valentine (42°46’48.83” N, 100°01’15.56” W). The Niobrara FPD is part of the Smithsonian ForestGEO network and is a complete forest inventory of woody stems greater than or equal to 1 cm in diameter at breast height. The forest is a postglacial refugium abutted by sandhills prairie. The forest types range from open oak-pine woodlands in the uplands to more mesic deciduous forest in canyons and lowlands. The first census was completed in 2019, and the second census was completed in 2023. Additional projects include studies on microclimate variation within the plot, trade-offs in leaf functional trait variation, the understory plant community, and within-season variation in tree diameter using dendrometer bands. In 2020, The Nature Conservancy conducted a prescribed burn within the plot, so response to prescribed fire is also a research focus.