Plant Communities Monitoring for the San Francisco Bay Area Inventory and Monitoring Network

Songer K. Plant Communities Monitoring for the San Francisco Bay Area Inventory and Monitoring Network. 2013. National Park Service

This project contains products resulting from Plant Communities monitoring (PCM) at National Park Service, San Francisco Bay Area Network Parks. Plant community monitoring is a high priority vital sign for this network at Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GOGA), Muir Woods National Monument (MUWO), Pinnacles National Park (PINN), and Point Reyes National Seashore (PORE). In these park units, plant communities are numerous and exhibit a complex spatial arrangement on the landscape. Because it is not possible to monitor every type that occurs in SFAN, and because these areas lack any relatively permanent feature of the landscape that can be utilized to reduce variability in the data set through stratification, SFAN park managers selected a set of mapped vegetation types for monitoring. The sampling design consists of randomly selecting a subset of stands of each selected vegetation type from preexisting vegetation maps. One sampling plot per stand is used to collect data on a suite of vegetation parameters that represent structure and composition metrics, such as cover by species, density of woody plants, and species richness, among others. The sampling plot is based on modifications to the design used by the US Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis program. Each vegetation type is on either an annual or three year sampling rotation: a subset of communities is sampled annually (some herbaceous vegetation types) to better understand interannual variability, other communities are monitored every three years to promote the ability of managers to respond if large undesirable changes are detected.

Type
Project
Authors
Songer, Kelsey
Publisher
National Park Service
Units
GOGA , JOMU , PINN , PORE
Keywords
botany
Subjects
Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Grassland/Herbaceous Communities , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Forest/Woodland Communities , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Vegetation Complex

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