A standard protocol for woody plant inventories and soil characterisation using temporary 0.1-HA plots in tropical forests

Arellano g,cala v,fuentes a,cayola l,jørgensen pm & macía mj. 2016. a standard protocol for woody plant inventories and soil characterisation using temporary 0.1-ha plots in tropical forests. the use of both uniform woody plant inventories and laboratory soil analysis methods facilitates data sharing and improves the understanding of large-scale biological patterns in tropical forests. temporary small 0.1-ha plots,fast and cheap to install,are increasingly employed in the tropics. this study presents a standard protocol for woody plant inventories and soil characterisation using 0.1-ha plots. the protocol gives specific recommendations on the size and shape of a 0.1-ha plot,taxa to be included in the inventories,minimum stem diameter cut-offs,evaluation of multiple stems and height estimation. in addition,we present a number of recommendations on soil sampling and analysis,whose standarisation is much required in tropical forest research. we suggest to measure al and nutrients simultaneously after mehlich-3 extraction,followed by inductively coupled plasma spectrometry,and to measure c and n through total combustion. the ph,texture and bulk density can be measured with standard manual methods. the study also includes guidelines to create and maintain a standardised database and metadata. all the proposed recommendations are compatible with those already employed in the standardised establishment of large plots. each recommendation represents a reasonable trade-off between investment and data quality and is oriented to obtain low-cost standardised baseline data,useful to a broad range of studies. © forest research institute malaysia.