Long-term vegetation and soil data from Banff & Jasper Forests

Data Rescue intern: Mobina Gholamhosseini

During Fall 2023 to Winter 2024, I had the opportunity to take part in a data rescue internship through the Canadian Institute of Ecology and Evolution’s Living Data Project (LDP), supported by an NSERC CREATE. As a graduate student at the Université de Montréal, I was thrilled to contribute to the accessibility of valuable ecological data. The focus of the internship was on a valuable dataset originally collected in 1967–68 from 63 lodgepole pine-dominated forest stands in Banff and Jasper National Parks (Alberta, Canada). These data — on soils, trees, and understory vegetation — represent an important snapshot of forest conditions from over 50 years ago, collected during the MSc thesis work of Roger Hnatiuk.

During my internship, I was responsible for data file curation, including cleaning and organizing the raw data into structured formats. I also drafted the initial version of the metadata (ReadMe) file, summarized and documented the variables across datasets. This work was done in collaboration with other members of the LDP community, and with the help of an undergrad student, Eva Gagnon (Université de Montréal), who digitized the original handwritten records.
Our efforts resulted in two published data packages, now openly available for use by researchers, educators, and policymakers:

• Macdonald et al. 2024 – Metadata and Overview
  
• Macdonald et al. 2024 – Full Dataset (47-year archive)
  

This internship taught me not only the technical skills of data stewardship, but also the broader importance of rescuing historical environmental data that might otherwise be lost. It was incredibly meaningful to help bring this unique dataset back to life—making it usable for future ecological studies.