By: Joe Sieger Vegetation Ecology July 17, 2013

Betasso Open Space is the foothills/lower montane life zone The NW sites had much less tree cover than the SW site and the NW slope had much more sunlight  “despite the considerable effort expended, a unified theory of plant species diversity has not yet emerged.” (Peet)  I found this interesting that there was not a lot of people studying plant diversity which is why I chose my question.

 Is the field layer vegetation in the foothills of Colorado specifically in Betasso Open Space evenly distributed between a NW and SW facing slopes and bottomland?

 One 100x100m plot for each topographic position  10 randomly selected Daubenmire plots at each site  Record the species, # individuals, and % cover  Selected three plants that appeared in all three plots and compare their distribution  Needle Thread Grass (Hesperostipa Comata), Smooth Brome (Bromus Inermus), Spiked Fescue (Leucopoa Kingii)  Psuedo-Replication because I only sampled in one area at Betasso

Pvalue=0.76

Pvalue:0.05 Pvalue:0.76

NW SiteSW Site Bottomland Site 77.77% 66.66%54.54%

My data showed no statistical significance for the topographic part of my study  The NW and SW facing slopes had the most similarities between them according to the Jaccard Index of Evenness  Composition of the community is depended on the type of species not where it is located on the foothills slope (rxc) because the interaction is not significant.

 Peet, Robert. FOREST VEGETATION OF THE COLORADO FRONT RANGE: PATTERNS OF SPECIES DIVERSITY. Diss. University of North Carolina, privately published, Print.