We surveyed the tree and seedling community in 34 vegetation plots in mature and >50 y old secondary lowland rain forest on the Polynesian island of Tutuila, American Samoa. The main data set includes original data from the tree surveys as well as all repeat surveys of seedling plots. We also include all R code and data sets used in analyses, including soil and environmental data, species by plot matrices for NMDS, and processed data used for survival analysis.

Trees with stem diameter ≥10 cm were surveyed in 17-m radius crcular plots (907.9 sq m each, total area surveyed = 3.09 ha). Seedling inventory was conducted in the center of the tree plot, in 15 2×2m seedling miniplots laid out in five rows of three contiguous miniplots with a 1-m wide path between each row of plots. We censused every seedling of a tree species that was ≥20 cm tall and ≤9.9 cm dbh. The first seedling survey was conducted in June 2011, with subsequent surveys every six months through June 2014, for a total of seven census events across three years. For censuses 2-7 we located all tagged stems, and identified and tagged new recruits that had achieved ≥20 cm stem height since the previous census. Those that died were recorded as "dead". We also accounted for seedlings that sustained damage and were reduced to <20 cm height, or which appeared dead but then resprouted.