These data represents the results of vegetation plots in west-slope Sierra Nevada forests. There is accompanying point count surveys for birds (see Central Sierra Hardwood Study - Birds) made at these survey plots. Please be aware that the coordinates of the points displayed in the text data display of this data set are California Teale-Albers NAD27 projection, but that the data point viewer displays these data points and the background layers in California Teale-Albers NAD83 projection.

TIME PERIOD COVERED. These data were collected during 2002 and 2003 between June-August by field crews working for California Department of Fish and Game.

GEOGRAPHIC EXTENT OF THE RECORDS. Vegetation plots extend from El Dorado to Tuolumne counties in the central Sierra Nevada between 2000-6000 ft elevation.

NUMBER OF RECORDS. There are 64 stands with habitat attributes measured from 3-4 0.2-acre sampling plots per stand.

BASE DATA STRUCTURE. The file is a flat table which gives vegetation attributes for each stand. Each stand is represented by two key fields called "Quad" and "Grid" which relate these habitat records to bird survey data collected in 2003 from the same sample stands.

WHAT EACH RECORD REPRESENTS. Each record in the table represents the stand's site attributes, habitat attributes, and California Wildlife Habitat (CWHR) classification type. Average values for each stand represent the grand mean of average values from the 3-4 plots measured at each sample stand or the average of single measurements of attributes from the 3-4 plots measured at each sample stand.