Long-Term Census of Seedlings and Small Saplings in the Barro Colorado Island 50-ha Forest Dynamics Plot, Panama

Dynamics at early life stages play a critical role in shaping the composition and diversity of tropical tree communities. To better understand spatial and temporal patterns of recruitment, growth, and survival at early life stages, we established a long-term census of woody seedlings and small saplings in the Barro Colorado Island 50-ha Forest Dynamics Plot. Individuals ≥20 cm tall and <1cm diameter at breast height (dbh) were censused in 18,434 1-m 2 seedling plots every one to two years between 2001 and 2018, resulting in a dataset of 1,002,400 observations of 185,693 individuals of more than 400 tree, shrub, and liana species. Here, we present patterns of seedling density and diversity from this long-term census and review the main findings of published studies that have used this dataset.