PARENT SESSION
Poster Session 10: Restoration and Adaptive Management
Tuesday, August 9, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM, Exhibit Hall 220 A-E, Level 2, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Assessing Ecological Collections: Lessons from Created and Natural Communities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum.

Leach, Mark ^*,1, Tom, Rooney¹, David, Rogers¹, Carrie, Andrew¹, Ted, Snyder¹, ¹ University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

ABSTRACT- Accurate assessment of natural vegetation status or "quality" is of considerable value to natural lands managers. However, there has been little critical assessment of the popular assessment metrics. We compared 28 assessment metrics using quantitative vegetation data from 25 sites of remnant, restored, created, managed and unmanaged ecological collections at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum. We will expand the number of sites this summer. To date, we've sampled examples of prairie, oak savanna, sedge meadow, sugar maple, and conifer forest. For each site we calculated a Sorenson quantitative similarity index (Cn) with model communities (derived primarily from John Curtis's Vegetation of Wisconsin) for use as an independent variable. Our preliminary "first cut" analysis of assessment used Spearman rank correlation between Cn and each metric. The highest correlated (r > 0.65) indices included Floristic Quality Index (based on site species list), mean 1-m2 Floristic Quality Index, site species richness, site native species richness, and Bowles' Site Richness Index.. There was little correlation (r < 0.05) between Cn and some indices heavily weighting the abundance of non-native species (e.g., mean number of aliens/1m2). The remaining indices fell somewhere in between. We are currently comparing the indices between and within similar community types to test the null hypothesis that each index serves all community types equally. These preliminary findings have shifted vegetation-management priorities at the Arboretum, and we expect will be of wide interest to other managers.

Key words: vegetation, assessment