Monitoring of Wetland Restoration Properties

Francesca LoPresti, Pat Ferrar and Chris Neill have been working with Kelly Omand and Nantucket Conservation Foundation scientists to compare methods for assessing the vegetation community. Francesca LoPresti gave talk at the sandplain grasslands conference that compares the point intercept (used by NCF) and plot based methods (used by Woodwell Climate Research Center). In summary, one point intercept transect identified an equivalent number of species to one 3 by 3 m quadrat. The point intercept methods yields higher estimate of percent cover compared to plots. The plots require less time to monitor than transects, so plots tend to be more practical for identifying species when high throughput monitoring is needed. See the Windswept project for more details on this analysis.

Comparison Point Intercepts Versus Quadrats for Quantifying Grassland-like
Vegetation. Francesca LoPresti, Research Assistant, ACES Fellow, Woodwell Climate
Research Center, Falmouth, MA.

Francesca's Talk starts at at 1:42:00