The dataset presented here was collected by the GenTree project (EU-Horizon 2020), which aims to improve the use of forest genetic resources across Europe by better understanding how trees adapt to their local environment. This dataset of individual tree-core characteristics including ring-width series and whole-core wood density was collected for seven ecologically and economically important European tree species: silver birch (Betula pendula), European beech (Fagus sylvatica), Norway spruce (Picea abies), European black poplar (Populus nigra), maritime pine (Pinus pinaster), Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), and sessile oak (Quercus petraea). Tree-ring width measurements were obtained from 3600 trees in 142 populations and whole-core wood density was measured for 3098 trees in 125 populations. This dataset covers most of the geographical and climatic range occupied by the selected species. The potential use of it will be highly valuable for assessing ecological and evolutionary responses to environmental conditions as well as for model development and parameterization, to predict adaptability under climate change scenarios.

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Since ancient times, Mediterranean pine forests have been habitat for human activity, providing a wide range of goods such as timber, seeds, resin and derived products. Among them, tar and resin have played an historical role on the interaction between human activity and forests. In Spain, the resin played an important role in the economic and social development in rural areas during 20 th century. But after 1980, resin production plummeted and the virtual disappearance of resin tapping caused the abandonment of traditional forest activities and the subsequently losses of ecosystem forest services (provision, regulation and cultural). This paper deals with some of the ecosystem services provided by resin tapped pine forests and shows how the abandonment of this traditional forestry activity would lead to a loss of social welfare beyond the economic activity. 2 Among these ecosystem services, special attention is paid to the biodiversity of the pine forests. For that purpose, a stratified vegetation sampling was conducted in the leading resin-tapping Spanish region. Ecological analysis was therefore compared with the social preferences for several attributes associated to resin-tapped pine forests in Spain, including the biodiversity of flora.

Approaches linking biodiversity assessment with landscape structure are necessary in the framework of sustainable rural development. The present paper describes a methodology to estimate plant diversity involving landscape structure as a proportional weight associated with different plant communities found in the landscape mosaic. The area occupied by a plant community, its patch number or its spatial distribution of patches are variables that could be expressed in gamma plant diversity of a territory. The methodology applies (1) remote sensing information, to identify land cover and land use types; (2) aspect, to discriminate composition of plant communities in each land cover type; (3) multi-scale field techniques, to asses plant diversity; (4) affinity analysis of plant community composition, to validate the stratified random sampling design and (5) the additive model that partitions gamma diversity into its alpha and beta components. The method was applied to three Spanish rural areas and was able to record 150-260 species per ha. Species richness, Shannon information index and Simpson concentration index were used to measure diversity in each area. The estimation using Shannon diversity index and the product of patch number and patch interspersion as weighting of plant community diversity was found to be the most appropriate method of measuring plant diversity at the landscape level.