Woody species diversity and land-use change legacy: Dataset across Uruguay

The presented datasets relate to the research article entitled “Beyond the boundaries: Do spatio-temporal trajectories of land-use change and cross boundary effects shape the diversity of woody species in Uruguayan native forests?” [Ramírez and Säumel 10.1016/j.agee.2021.107646]. The datasets include field survey data on woody species diversity from 32 permanent plots of native forests across the Oriental Republic of Uruguay (South America). Based on land-use maps created with Landsat images we analysed the changes of percentage of cover, the landscape shape index and aggregation index of the different land-use types (i.e., native forest, grassland, timber plantation and crops) in a buffer of 3 km from the central point of each plot. Datasets were produced using ArcGIS and different R and Fragstat packages. Data on woody species diversity, land-use change history inform landscape planning, land-use management, policy and governance and can be used for further meta-analysis with other local, regional or global data sets.