Great Smoky Mountains Forest Communities and Soil Quality Vital Signs DatasetThis data package is the authoritative dataset for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) Forest Communities and Soil Quality Vital Signs Protocol. Forest Communities and Soil Quality are two of the six Vital Signs selected for monitoring at GRSM, and are co-collected through a distributed plot network of 160 plots throughout the six primary watersheds of the Vital Signs program. Objectives of the monitoring program are to capture status and trends of forest health and soil quality as they relate to environmental stressors, and how these metrics influence each other. This dataset includes one year (2015) of 16 prototype plots that have not been resampled, one full cycle of vegetation data on the 160 plot network (2016-2020) and one full cycle of soils data (2017-2021). The second cycle of data is in progress with 3/5 years of vegetation data complete (2021, 2023, 2024) and 2/5 years of soils data (2023, 2024). No data were collected in 2022.Data collected as part of this protocol include Live and Standing Dead Tree species, size, and health; Woody Stem species, size and abundance (tree saplings and true shrubs); Seedling species and abundance (tree seedlings and true shrubs); overall Species Diveristy, and herbaceous species cover classes, Downed Deadwood abundance, size, and decay class; Vegetation Community type and vertical forest structure; Soil chemical and physical properties.