Proposal to change how plant communities are sampled through time in the Heartland Network

James, Kevin; Morrison, Lloyd; DeBacker, Mike

Accounting for inter-annual variability between sample years is an underlying factor in the current revisit design. Furthermore, it provides a balance between sampling tours that allows for the greatest amount of field work to be accomplished per year while minimizing cost. The two-year-on, three-year-off revisit plan provides an estimate of inter-annual variability while protecting sites from trampling effects. Using a mean value across time periods reduces the effect of short-term variation. Averaging monitoring data across time periods, however, results in a loss of information by smoothing the data. Utilizing readily available datasets, it is now possible to analyze monitoring data and environmental data simultaneously to better address the short-term effects of weather on the measured response. Switching to a one-year-on, three-year-off schedule for plant community monitoring maintains all the benefits of the current logistical plan and revisit design while improving how inter-annual variability is addressed. The proposed changes to the revisit design temporally coordinate bird community, plant community and invasive plant monitoring at all parks in the network. This provides a larger window of opportunity for park managers to initiate management actions and a larger window for measurable changes to be detected in monitoring response variables. All aspects of the current sampling design will be improved as the proposed changes to the revisit design are implemented network-wide.

Proposal to change how plant communities are sampled through time in the Heartland Network

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