The vegetation data from the Sogwangri, forest genetic resource reserve

Study Extent

The target site of this study is geographically located at 36°57′51″ to 37°02′43″ north latitude and 129°09′30″ to 129°16′47″ east longitude. It is connected to Tonggosan (1,066.5m) in the east, the Taebaeksanmaek in the east, and Baekbyeongsan (1,150m) in the west, and Satgatjae. The total area is about 3,705 ha. Administratively, it is located in Sogwang-ri, Geumgangsong-myeon, Uljin-gun, Gyeongsangbuk-do, which borders Gangwon-do (Figure 1). The geology is mostly Buncheon granitic gneiss of the Precambrian period, and Wonnam Formation and hornblende are distributed long from northeast to southwest at the midpoint between Sogwangcheon and Daegwangcheon and Baekbyeongsan Mountains (Geological Survey of Korea, 1967). The effective soil depth was 31 cm on average, and the soil was mainly sandy soil and the effective phosphoric acid was 11.8 ppm (layer A), which was much lower than the appropriate value of 60 ppm for general forest soil in Korea. There are 7 types of forest soil types, and among them, 'brown red and wet forest soil' was the highest at about 35% of the total area (Southern regional Office of Forest Service, 2007). In terms of topography, it has a steep downward slope toward the south with the main ridgeline forming the northern boundary of the protected area, and two streams, Sogwangcheon and Daegwangcheon, are well-developed on the left and right. In this decade, 2012-2022, there were some severe forest fires near this reserve. With the reserve establishment, all logging, grazing and, any construction in the area were strictly prohibited and these rules are still in force today

Sampling

Sampling methods: In the growing seasons 2013 and 2014, vegetation was surveyed in 322 temporary plots: 50 in 2013 and 272 in 2014. The data were sampled according to the relevé method (plot size were 400m2, 20 x 20 m and 100 m , 10 × 10 m) using the Braun-Blanquet coverabundance scale (Mueller-Dombois and Ellenberg 1974). The total cover and individual cover by species for all vascular plants were estimated for the following vegetation layers: the tree canopy layer (the overstorey), the understorey layer including tree undergrowth and tall shrubs and the field layer comprising the herbaceous species, together with tree and shrub seedlings. The position of the centre of each site was georeferenced using GPS receiver in WGS84 datum.

Quality Control

Scientific names and locality names in the digitized datasets were kept the same as in the original paper. The authors determined the species names given according to the Provisional checklist of vascular plants for the Korea Peninsula Flora (Chang et al., 2014). All scientific names were cross-checked and taxonomically updated using the taxonomic module of BRAHMS (Pouwer et al., 2008)

Method steps

1. According to the criteria of Font Kim (2014), two life forms were recognised: shrub (woody individual less than 5 m tall that branches from the base at 1.5 to 4.9 m) and tree (woody individual that had a shaft of ≥ 5 m in height), all the individuals rooted within the transect and having ≥ 1 cm of DAP, were measured (DBH, height) and were identified as fully as possible to species. We registered data as common name entered other field data with the Darwin Core format was published.

the Sogwangri, forest genetic resource reserve, Gyeonsangbuk-do, Republic of Korea