Spatial pattern, size and identity of plant individuals in the local neighbourhood have a significant impact on plant growth and mortality. This data set provides the information on spatial coordinates expressed by distance, horizontal distance and the azimuth to certain measuring point. The spatial pattern of tree stems can be reconstructed by using this collected spatial coordinates. This data was collected during end of March and beginning of April in all 27 Comparative Study Plots (CSPs) located in Gutianshan National Nature Reserve (GNNR). The distance, horizontal distance and azimuth of each tagged trees was measured from the certain measuring points. From the first measuring point, as many as possible trees were measured except ones with view obstruction between the measuring point and the tagged tree. In the later case, alternative measuring point was set and from which the remaining trees were measured. The spatial coordinate of the alternative measuring points in relation to the first measuring point was also recorded, so that the spatial coordinates of tree individuals measured from the alternative measuring points could be recalculated to generate a spatial coordinates in relation to the first measuring point.

The metal tagged trees from SP1e/SP1c are the target trees. One measuring reference point was fixed in the subplot 22, from which the distance, horizontal distance and azimuth to each targe tree were measured. Because of the view obstruction, some tree individuals cannot be measured from the first measuring reference point. In this case, the alternative measuring reference point will be chosen and from which the remaining individuals were measured. One rule of working flow was kept: the further alternative measuring reference point is only chosen when all trees without obstruction problem were measured from the previous reference point. The spation coordination of the alternative measuring reference points to the first reference point were documented.

Comparative Study sites, BEF China Experiment, Gutianshan National Nature Reserve (GNNR), China. The GNNR is located in the western part of Zhejiang Province (29°8'18"-29°17'29" N, 118°2'14'-118°11'12'' E). The forest is representative of Chinese broad-leaved forests (Wu 1980, Hu and Yu 2008, Legendre et al. 2009) with evergreren species dominating the forest in number of individuals (Yu et al. 2001) but with approximately similar proportions of deciduous species in terms of species number (Lou and Jin 2000).

All metal tagged mature tree individuals in all CSPs