The Nature Conservancy: A Pilot Season for Cooperative Grassland Monitoring Meredith Cornett Director of Conservation Science The Nature Conservancy Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota November 14, 2007 ©Eric Stubbs NASA
New charge – make measures useful – BY DESIGN Measures seen as last step - often neglected Many examples of ineffective monitoring failing to inform ineffective management Improvements Needed
Status (2) How is the biodiversity we care about doing? This project has potential to address both needs for some variables. Effectiveness (1) Are our conservation actions having their intended impact? Effectiveness vs. status measures
Landscapes of Interest Scale: Each site is a datapoint.
Vital Statistics # Sites Sampled = 6 # Acres Sampled = 1,114 Field time: Averaged 1 transect/hour including travel and set-up. Considering only sample time, it takes 20 to 45 minutes depending on the vegetation. Transect Density = 1 per 10 acres –(too dense for relatively homogeneous conditions?)
Natives/Exotics n=45 n=10 n=9 n=7 n=24 n=19 Management Objective: Maintain or increase % cover of native prairie vegetation relative to invasive/exotic vegetation.
Top Exotics: Occurring at All Sites n=9 n=10 n=7 n=45 n=24 n=19 Management Objective: Minimize % cover of invasive/exotic vegetation, with particular attention to a short list of species.
Quality Indicators Management Objective: Maintain current frequency of quality indicators (e.g., grazing sensitive species) across the landscape. Is rotational grazing compatible with maintaining desired structure and composition?
Quality Indicators: Prairie Coteau Example Species Proportion Transects Narrow-leaved Purple Coneflower0.35 Pasque Flower0.325 Purple Prairie Clover0.325 Showy Milkweed0.225 Silky Aster0.15 Tall Meadow-rue0.125 Dotted Blazing Star0.075 Tall Cinquefoil0.075 Ground Plum0.05 White Prairie Clover0.05 Rough Blazing Star0.025 SpeciesProportion Transects Indian Grass0.5 Plains Muhly0.225 Prairie Dropseed0.175 Thread-leaved Sedge0.025 Species Proportion Transects Leadplant0.25 Fragrant False Indigo0.025 Forbs Graminoids Shrubs
Structure: Vegetation
Transect vs. Plot Dominants TransectPOAPRABROINESTISPAANDSCO BOUCU RANDGERSYMOCCHELRIGSORNUTPANVIRPHAARUSOLCANHELMAXSPOHETKOEMAC
Structure: Litter
Robel: G Transects – Prairie Coteau Habitat Partnership
Robel: PCHP Proportions Matter Management Objective: Restore the full range of structural variability across the landscape, with all height classes represented.
Your Help Needed Peer review of methods, etc. –Robel vs. height measurements every 5m (redundant? Other redundancies?) –Transect density Design issues – if to set up an adaptive management experiment Support for data management
Possibilities for Next Field Season Quality control: Possibly resample each others’ transects to determine repeatability of our methods? Drop dominant species for each plot, just do checklist for transect (TNC)? Compare with “G-Transect” method (or does it matter?) Even higher level of coordination?
Issues Robel: Transects on steep slopes Vegetation height: Estimated average height of the majority of vegetation in immediate area of meter stick (to max of 0.5 m radius) Plant groups: Bulk of time spent making decisions about vegetation within each 0.5 m quadrat Assessing dominant species within each quadrat added 5-10 m per transect
Issues, Continued Plant groups: wet meadow – misclassification could lead to inappropriate data collection Vegetation cover: used relative rather than absolute cover Vegetation cover: added category “other” for bare ground