Abstract
We present a rapid, cost-efficient methodology to link plantdiversity surveys from plots to landscapes using: (1) unbiasedsite selection based on remotely sensed information; (2) multi-scale field techniques to assess plant diversity; (3)mathematical models (species-area curves) to estimate thenumber of species in larger areas corrected for within-typeheterogeneity; and (4) mathematical techniques to estimatetotal species richness and patterns of plant diversity in alandscape. We demonstrate the methodology in a 754 ha studyarea in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, U.S.A.,using four 0.025 ha and twenty-one 0.1 ha multi-scalevegetation plots. We recorded 330 plant species (∼1/3 thenumber of plants recorded in the 1074 km2 Park) in the2.2 ha area within the plots: this represents a samplingintensity of 0.29% of the 754 ha study site. We estimated 552plant species, about half the plant species recorded in the Park,in just 0.7% of the Park‘s area. We show how this rapid,cost-efficient methodology: (1) produces a rich informationbase on the patterns of native plant diversity and thedistribution of non-native plant species and keystoneecosystems; and (2) can be easily adapted for other nationaland state parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, and nature reserves.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Austin, M. P. and Heyligers, P. C.: 1991, ‘New Approach to Vegetation Survey Design: Gradsect Sampling’, in: Margules, C. R. and Austin, M. P. (eds.), Nature Conservation: Cost Effective Biological Surveys and Data Analysis, CSIRO, Australia, pp. 31–36.
Baker, W.L.: 1990, ‘Species richness of Colorado riparian vegetation’, Journal of Vegetation Science 1, 119–124.
Buckley, D. J., Coughenour, M. B., Blyth, C. B., O'Leary, D. J. and Bentz, J. A.: 1993, ‘Ecosystem Management Model-Elk Island National Park: A case Study of Integrating Environmental Models with GIS’, Second International Conference on Integrating GIS and Environmental Modeling, Breckenridge, CO.
Cherrill, A. J., McClean, C., Watson, P., Tucker, K., Rushton, S. P. and Sanderson, R.: 1995, ‘Predicting the distributions of plant species at the regional scale: a hierarchical matrix model’, Landscape Ecology 10, 197–207.
Daubenmire, R. F.: 1959, ‘A canopy-coverage method of vegetational analysis’, Northwest Science 33, 43–64.
DeByle, N. V.: 1985, ‘Wildlife’, in: Aspen: Ecology and Management in the Western United States, United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service General Technical Report RM-119, Fort Collins, CO, pp. 135–152.
Franklin, J. F.: 1993, ‘Preserving biodiversity: species, ecosystems, or landscapes?’, Ecological Applications 3, 202–206.
Golden Software, Inc.: 1994, ‘Surfer’, 809 14th St., Golden, Colorado 80401-1866.
Huston, M. A.: 1994, Biological Diversity: the Coexistence of Species on Changing Landscapes, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Jones, J. R. and DeByle, N. V.: 1985, ‘Fire’, in: Aspen: Ecology and Management in the Western United States, United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service General Technical Report RM-119, Fort Collins, CO, pp. 77–81.
Kalkhan, M. A., Stohlgren, T. J. and Coughenour, M.: 1995, ‘An Investigation of Biodiversity and Landscape-Scale Gap Patterns using Double Sampling: A GIS Approach’, in: Proceedings of the Ninth Conference on Geographic Information Systems, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, pp. 708–712.
Kareiva, P. M. and Anderson, M.: 1988, ‘Spatial Aspects of Species Interactions: The Wedding of Models and Experiments’, in: A. Hastings (ed.), Community Ecology, Lecture Notes in Biomathematics 77. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 35–50.
Krebs, C. J.: 1989, Ecological Methodology, Harper & Row, New York, NY.
Legendre, P. and Fortin, M.-J. 1989, ‘Spatial pattern and ecological analysis’, Vegetatio 80, 107–138.
Margurran, A. E.: 1988, Ecological Diversity and its Measurement, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Messer, J. J., Linthurst, R. A. and Overton, W. S.: 1991, ‘An EPA program for monitoring ecological status and trends’, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 17, 67–78.
Mueggler, W. F.: 1985, ‘Forage’, in: Aspen: Ecology and Management in the Western United States, United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service General Technical Report RM-119, Fort Collins, CO, pp. 129–134.
Noss, R. F. and Cooperrider, A. Y.: 1994, Savings Nature's Legacy: Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity, Island Press, Washington, D.C.
Palmer, C. J., Ritters, K. H., Strickland, J., Cassell, D. C., Byers, G. E., Papp, M. L. and Liff, C. I.: 1991, Monitoring and research strategy for forests-Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). EPA/600/4-91/012. United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.
Parker, K. W.: 1951, ‘A method for measuring trend in range condition on National Forest ranges’, USDA National Forest Service document.
Peet, R. K.: 1981, ‘Forest vegetation of the Colorado Front Range: patterns of species diversity’, Vegetatio 52, 129–140.
Peet, R. K.: 1988, ‘Forests of the Rocky Mountains’, in: Barbour, M. G. and Billings, W. D. (eds.), North American Terrestrial Vegetation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 64–103.
Peters, R. L. and Lovejoy, T. E. (eds.): 1992, Global Warming and Biological Diversity, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
Salt, G. W.: 1957, ‘An analysis of avifaunas in the Teton Mountains and Jackson Hole, Wyoming’, The Condor 59, 373–393.
Scott, J. M., Davis, F., Csuti, B., Noss, R., Butterfield, B., Groves, C., Anderson, H., Caicco, S., D'Erchia, F., Edwards, T. C., Ulliman, J. and Wright, R. G.: 1993, ‘GAP Analysis: A Geographic Approach to Protection of Biological Diversity’, Wildlife Monographs 123, 1–41.
Shmida, A.: 1984, ‘Whittaker's plant diversity sampling method’, Israel Journal of Botany 33, 41–46.
Short, H. L. and Hestbeck, J. B.: 1995, ‘National Biotic Resource Inventories and GAP Analysis: problems of scale and unproven assumptions limit a national program’, Bioscience 45, 535–539.
Soulé, M. E. and Kohm, K. A.: 1989, Research Priorities for Conservation Biology, Island Press, Washington, D.C.
Stohlgren, T. J.: 1994, ‘Planning Long-Term Vegetation Studies at Landscape Scales’, in: Powell, T. and Steele, J. (eds.), Ecological Time Series, Chapman and Hall, New York, NY, pp. 209–241
Stohlgren, T. J., Falkner, M. B. and Schell, L. D.: 1995a, ‘A modified-Whittaker nested vegetation sampling method’, Vegetation 117, 113–121.
Stohlgren, T. J., Quinn, J. F., Ruggiero, M. and Waggoner, G.: 1995b. ‘Status of biotic inventories in U.S. National Parks’, Biological Conservation 71, 97–106.
Stohlgren, T. J., Chong, G. W., Kalkhan, M. A. and Schell, L. D.: 1996a, ‘Multi-scale sampling of Plant Diversity: Effects of the minimum mapping unit’, Ecological Applications (in review).
Stohlgren, T. J., Coughenour, M. B., Chong, G. W., Binkley, D., Kalkhan, M., Schell, L. D., Buckley, D. and Berry, J.: 1996b, ‘Landscape analysis of plant diversity’, Landscape Ecology (in press).
Wickham, J. D., Wade, T. G., Jones, K. B., Ritters, K. H. and O'Neill, R. V.: 1995, ‘Diversity of ecological communities of the United States’, Vegetation 119, 91–100.
Wilson, E. O.: 1988, ‘The Current State of Biological Diversity’, in: Wilson, E. O. and Peter, F. M. (eds.), Biodiversity, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C, pp. 3–18.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stohlgren, T.J., Chong, G.W., Kalkhan, M.a. et al. Rapid Assessment of Plant Diversity Patterns: A Methodology for Landscapes. Environ Monit Assess 48, 25–43 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005796618823
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005796618823