Inventory data of woody plants surveyed and measured in North Senegal (Ferlo) in 2015-2017

This dataset gathers measurements from field inventory on woody vegetation carried in the sylvo-pastoral zone of Ferlo (Senegalese Sahel) in 2015-2016-2017. The data consist of dendrometric measurements, location and species for 3215 woody individuals (trees, bushes, and shrubs) belonging to 25 species and 11 families.

Sites

The study sites are located in the Northern Sandy Pastoral Region of Senegal around the deep wells of Widou Thiengoly (15.99° N, 15.32° W) and Tessékéré (15.85° N, 15.06° W). The vegetation formation is an open savanna, with a relatively low woody cover.

For the field work of 2015, we applied a stratified sampling according to the topography and the distance to the studied deep wells. We inventoried 139 plots of 0.25 ha each. The center of each plot was marked by a gps point. The plots were located at increasing distances from the boreholes: 2, 3.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 and 15 km (20 plots per distance). For each distance, we randomly selected at least six plots in depressions (43 plots in total), the other plots being located on slopes or on hilltops, with a total vertical drop of several meters (96 plots in total). Whenever possible, the plots in each category of topography were distributed between the two soil types. In total, 86 plots were allocated to the ferruginous soils and 53 plots to the sub-arid brown red soils. 

In 2016, additional woody plants were surveyed within 10 circular plots with a variable radius between 27 m and 52 m, so that at least 10 individuals were counted for each plot. In 2017, woody plants were surveyed within 30 square plots of 0.25 ha each. Woody individuals were all geotagged in 2016 and 2017.  

Field measurements

Adults woody plants (with a circumference superior to 10 cm at ground level) were inventoried within square plots (2015, 2017) or circular (2016). Species name was identified for all individuals and recorded following the taxonomic referential of the African Plant Database (version 3.4.0). Three types of dendrometric measurements were performed on woody plants: (i) circumference, measured at 30 cm from ground level, except for shrubs for which circumference was measured at ground level; (ii) tree height, measured by an ultrasonic hypsometer Vertex IV (Haglof Inc.) (iii) two perpendicular crown diameters. GPS points were taken (GPSMAP 62, Garmin Inc.) at the center of each plot (for 2015) and, in some cases for each individual (2016-2017).

Data structure and metadata

Data are encoded in a single file, using comma-delimited format and UTF-8 encoding. Each row describes one individual woody plant with its corresponding measurements. The following table presents the variables (columns) contained in the dataset.

Shapefile format is also available (same data as the .csv).