Abstract
In aquatic macrophyte ecology, species abundance is usually estimated by cover values expressed on the ordinal scale. Recently, there has been increasing demand for three-dimensional estimates of plant abundance. To extend ordinal cover data into three dimensions, a new formula is proposed which considers the vertical developmental types of plants. In this, a constant k is used with three different values reflecting three groups of macrophytes, namely the “free floating leaved”; “rooted, floating leaved” and “submersed leaved” species. By using the new formula, inappropriate conversion and evaluation of ordinal abundance data occurring frequently in the literature may also be avoided.
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Abbreviations
- FFL:
-
Free Floating Leaved
- PVI:
-
Plant Volume Inhabited or Plant Volume Infested
- RFL:
-
Rooted, Floating Leaved
- RPM:
-
Relative Plant Mass
- SML:
-
SubMersed Leaved
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Engloner, A.I. Proposal for estimating volume based relative abundance of aquatic macrophytes. COMMUNITY ECOLOGY 16, 33–38 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1556/168.2015.16.1.4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1556/168.2015.16.1.4