Vascular Plant Inventory and Plant Community Classification for Kings Mountain National Military Park
2005. Vascular Plant Inventory and Plant Community Classification for Kings Mountain National Military Park
The first step in any effort to monitor the “vital signs” or ecological health of a tract of land is to develop a vegetation baseline from which to measure and gauge trends. This project established a baseline for vegetation at Kings Mountain NMP in three ways: 1) Ecologists from NatureServe established fifteen permanently marked one-hectare circular plots within the park in a grid system and another six circular plots in unique ecological areas that were not covered by the initial grid-based plot layout. The permanently marked plots are available to be used by researchers on studies ranging from bird point counts to individual plant monitoring. 2) Ecologists collected data on all unique vegetation communities within the park and identified 13 natural and 12 human-modified or successional vegetation associations (unique ecological assemblages of plants) within the park boundary. 3) Ecologists collected and vouchered 25 specimens that will be delivered to the National Park Service and probably housed at Kings Mountain National Military Park. Of these 25 specimens, there are 22 vouchered species new to the park. NatureServe worked with photo-interpreters from the Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science (CRMS), Department of Geography, University of Georgia, to complete a vegetation map of all of the communities in the park (Jordan and Madden, 2010). Using the National Vegetation Classification System (NVCS) developed by Natureserve, with additional classes and modifiers, overstory vegetation communities were interpreted from stereo color infrared aerial photographs using manual interpretation methods. Using a minimum mapping unit of 0.5 hectares (MMU = 0.5 ha), polygons representing areas of relatively uniform vegetation were delineated and annotated on clear plastic overlays registered to the aerial photographs. Polygons were labeled according to the dominant vegetation community. The final step of this project was an accuracy assessment on the map. The ultimate goal of the project is to deliver the information described in this report to all interested parties, to inform land management, conservation priorities, and future research at the park, and to ensure that future generations of visitors will visit a park that is both ecologically and historically intact.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Date of Issue
- 2005-01
- Units
- KIMO , VMI
- Keywords
- Accuracy Assessment, Aerial Photography, alliances, Associations, community association, Digital Orthophoto, Digital Spatial Database, DOQ, DOQQ, Field Data, flight line, GIS, GPS, habitat mapping, Inventory Projects, Landcover, Landscape, National Park, National Park Service Inventory, National Vegetation Classification Standard, National Vegetation Classification System, NVCS, Orthophoto, Plots, U.S. National Vegetation Classification, USNVC, USNVCS, Vegetation Inventory, Vegetation Inventory Report, Vegetation Map Report, Vegetation Mapping, Vegetation Plots