Each site has approximately 50 permanent vegetation plots, surveyed approximately every 4 years. Plots are 2 × 2 m2 and are divided into 25 cells. Presence of vegetation species (vascular plants, bryophytes, and lichens at some sites) is recorded for each cell, and % cover is recorded for each species at the plot level. Other information collected includes slope and aspect of the plot, bare ground, vegetation height. Additional information about tree species is collected over larger plots (10 × 10 m2) within woodlands. See the methods documents below for more detailed information.
Permanent plot numbers and locations should generally be consistent between surveys. If a previously installed feno marker could not be found at a subsequent survey it is likely to have been replaced by a new feno marker at the same GPS coordinates. This is indicated in the data by the plot number changing from e.g. ‘2’ to ‘2a’. This is most likely to have occurred before high accuracy GPS units were available on the surveys and therefore where coordinate accuracy might have been several metres, but we suspect that some feno markers have been deliberately removed or, in some substrates, have been covered over. High accuracy GPS coordinates are now available for most plots.
The species datasets published on this page include all species records from the 2 × 2 m2 plots, with the exception of lichen species. The plot dataset includes all plot and site identifiers as well as the location information (Eastings/Northings, latitude/longitude, and British National Grid coordinates). All other data (tree data from the larger plots and non-species plot data) is available from the Data by Sites pages (link below), but will soon also be available in compiled datasets on this page. “Split data” contains species records at the taxonomic level recorded in the field aligned with UK Species Inventory (UKSI). This data includes synonyms and therefore may not be directly suitable for analysis. “Lumped data” contains species records that have been changed to remove any synonyms (e.g. where species aggregates have commonly been used in the field these are used throughout the dataset, removal of all subspecies). Plot coordinates are available in the “plot dataset”. All species records are aligned with UKSI.
We would be grateful if you could let us know how you are using this data: LTMN@naturalengland.org.uk
This page is part of Natural England’s Long Term Monitoring Network.