Lopé Tree Phenology Dataset

Abstract

Since 1984, researchers at the Station d’Études des Gorilles and Chimpanzées (SEGC) in Lopé National Park, Gabon have recorded leaf, flower and fruit phenology monthly for 88 species of tropical trees and shrubs (>1000 individuals) spread over an area of 33km2 for great ape and elephant research. At the beginning of every month, SEGC researchers examine the crowns of each plant from the ground with 10 x 42 binoculars and record the proportion of the canopy covered by each phenophase (new and senescent leaves, flowers, unripe and ripe fruits) as a scale from zero to four (including half points; Tutin, Caroline EG, and Michel Fernandez. "Composition of the diet of chimpanzees and comparisons with that of sympatric lowland gorillas in the Lopé Reserve, Gabon." American Journal of Primatology 30.3 (1993): 195-211; Tutin, C. E. G., and L. J. T. White. "12. Primates, Phenology and Frugivory: Present, Past and Future Patterns in the Lope Reserve, Gabon.", in Dynamics of Tropical Communities: 37th Symposium of the British Ecological Society. Cambridge University Press, 1998). The SEGC study area is situated in a tropical forest-savanna matrix with an equatorial climate characterised by two dry and two wet seasons annually (see Tutin & White 1998 for detailed site description).

This dataset contains monthly fruit, flower and leaf phenophase scores for shrubs and trees, located along four fixed "forest" circuits (Kapok, Tortue, Centrale, FdA), natural forest fragments and gallery forests ("bosquets") and two fixed circuits (Crete, Chameau) from 1986 to 2016. Selection criteria are as described in the accompanying manuscript (Bush et. al. 2017, Towards effective monitoring of tropical phenology: Maximising returns and reducing uncertainty in long-term studies, 2018).