Transcript The Carolina Vegetation Survey

The Carolina Vegetation
Survey
Robert K. Peet
Univ. North Carolina at Chapel Hill
In collaboration with
Thomas Wentworth (NCSU), Alan Weakley (NCBG),
Mike Schafale (NC Heritage Program)
Carolina Vegetation Survey
Multi-institutional collaborative study to
document and understand the natural
vegetation of the Carolinas.
High-quality,
quantitative
records of
natural
vegetation
Why CVS?
• Description, classification, and analysis of
the natural vegetation of the Carolinas
• Determine attributes of individual taxa
• Inventory
• Targets for restoration
• Long-term monitoring – both natural and
modified lands
• It’s fun
Data collection and
analysis - an on-going
activity
The NCVS Protocol
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Consistent methodology
Appropriate for most vegetation types
FGDC compliant
Scale transgressive
Flexible in intensity of use and commitment of
time (Levels 1-5)
Easily resampleable
Total floristics
Tree population structure
Major site variables, including soil attributes
Plots contain
multiple modules
recorded at
multiple scales
The Pulse Approach
• Based on community collaboration
• Provides training & experience
• Intense regional focus for one week
– “Bootcamp for botanists”
– “Botanical Woodstock”
– “Extreme botany”
NCVS Report Card
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Pulses events: 19 years (1-2/yr)
Numerous affiliated projects
Volunteer participants: > 600
Total plots: > 6000
Total species: > 3000
Total vegetation types: > 200
Results: Species frequencies
2628 of 4073 species, 4956 plots, 194331 occurrences
Octave
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Range
0
1
2-3
4-7
8-15
16-31
32-63
64-127
128-255
256-511
512-1023
1024-2047
>2047
Count
1445
354
350
342
342
328
280
268
189
95
53
25
1
Top 5 species in 4955 plots
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63%
39%
38%
36%
36%
Acer rubrum (Red Maple)
Smilax glauca (Whiteleaf Greenbrier)
Smilax rotundifolia (Common Greenbrier)
Nyssa sylvatica (Black Gum)
Quercus rubra (Red Oak)
Top 7 species:
652 Coastal Plain forest plots
• 48%
• 44%
• 44%
• 41%
• 41%
• 35%
• 34%
Toxicodendron radicans (Poison-ivy)
Acer rubrum (Red Maple)
Parthenocissus quinquefolia
(Virginia-creeper)
Vitis rotundifolia (Muscadine)
Liquidambar styraciflua (Sweetgum)
Smilax rotundifolia
(Common Greenbrier)
Smilax bona-nox (Catbrier)
(15 of the top 50 are vines)
Who is missing?
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Rare species
Weeds of fields and waste places
Plants of marshes and wetlands
Plants of special habitats
Occurrences of Carolina Milkweeds
**=rare, *=uncommon (Weakley 2006)
31
Asclepias amplexicaulis
1
** Asclepias perennis
9
**
Asclepias cinerea
0
** Asclepias purpurascens
1
**
Asclepias connivens
13
Asclepias quadrifolia
58
Asclepias exaltata
3
18
Asclepias humistrata
0
4
Asclepias incarnata
6
Asclepias lanceolata
28
Asclepias tuberosa
27 *
Asclepias longifolia
14
Asclepias variegata
13 *
Asclepias michauxii
24 *
Asclepias verticillata
1
**
Asclepias obovata
2
*
Asclepias viridiflora
9
**
Asclepias pedicellata
0
** Asclepias viridis
3
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Asclepias rubra
Asclepias syriaca
*
Asclepias tomentosa
Longleaf Pine vegetation
Xeric barrens &
Subxeric uplands:
Longleaf – turkey
oak woodlands on
entisols
9 Types
13 Types
Flatwoods:
Longleaf
woodlands of
spodosols
5 types
Silty uplands:
Longleaf woodlands
on well-drained
ultisols
12 types
Savannas and seeps:
Longleaf woodlands
on moist alfisols
13 types
Ecological Groups
Mountain Vegetation
• Montane upland forests
• Montane open upland vegetation
• Montane alluvial wetland vegetation
• Montane nonalluvial wetland vegetation
Piedmont Vegetation
• Piedmont upland forests
• Piedmont open upland vegetation
• Piedmont alluvial wetland vegetation
• Piedmont nonalluvial wetland vegetation
Coastal Plain Vegetation
• Coastal Plain upland forests
• Coastal Plain upland open & woodland vegetation
• Coastal Plain alluvial wetland vegetation
• Coastal Plain nonalluvial wetland vegetation
Coastal Fringe Vegetation
• Maritime upland forests & shrublands
• Maritime open upland vegetation
• Maritime nontidal wetland vegetation
• Tidal wetland vegetation
http://cvs.bio.unc.edu
Targets for ecological
restoration
Classic Restoration strategy
• Document reference conditions
• Derive restoration targets
• Design site-specific restoration plan
• Implement the plan
• Monitor change and assess success
• Employ adaptive management
North Carolina Ecosystem
Enhancement Program
“The EEP mission is to restore, enhance,
preserve and protect the functions
associated with wetlands, streams, and
riparian areas, including … restoration,
maintenance and protection of water
quality and riparian habitats …”
Ecosystem Enhancement Program
Biennial Budget FY 2005/06 and 2006-07
Cost by Category:
Total $175,077,880
3% 5%
Administration
Restoration
33%
59%
Summary
Administration
$ 9,477,939
Restoration*
$ 102,910,770
HQ Preservation
$ 57,984,804
Project Development
$ 4,704,366
Biennial Total
$ 175,077,880
HQ
Preservation
Project
Development
*Includes Implementation and
Future Mitigation Projects
Stream Restoration
Durham, NC
Traditional EEP method
• Consult brief habitat-based plant lists
• Design a site-specific restoration plan
• Implement the plan
• Monitor survival of planted stems 5 yrs
• Replant if needed
EEP-CVS Collaboration
• EEP wants to do a better job creating
natural ecosystems.
• CVS provides improved reference
data, target design,
monitoring, and
data management
and analysis
Target generation
• Simple goal – Deliver composition goal
based on the vegetation type most
appropriate for the site and region.
• Sophisticated goal – Automated
system that uses site information and
reference plot data to predict
vegetation composition.
Longleaf pine – feasibility study
• Few longleaf pine sites remain in “original”
condition.
• Restoration targets must be extrapolated
from a limited number of reference stands.
Dataset:
-188 plots across
fall-line sandhills
of NC, SC, & GA
- All sites contained
near-natural, firemaintained groundlayer
vegetation
- Soil attributes included for both the A
and B horizon: sand, silt, clay, Ca, Mg, K, P,
S, Mn, Na, Cu, Zn, Fe, BD, pH, organic
content, CEC, BS.
Step 1. Classification.
Developed a classification of the major
vegetation types of the ecoregion.
Used cluster analysis with a matrix of 188
plots x 619 species.
Vegetation types were seen to be
differentiated with respect to soil
texture, moisture, nutrient status, &
geography.
Step 2. Build model.
- Forward selection with linear discriminant
analysis identified predictor variables.
- Critical variables were Latitude,
Manganese, Phosphorus, Clay, Longitude.
- 75% of plots correctly identified to
vegetation series. Typically 75% of plots
within a series were correctly classified to
community type.
Step 3. Select species.
1. Generate a list of all species in type (species
pool) with frequency, mean cover values, and
mean richness.
2. Randomly order the list
3. Compare species frequency to random number
between 0 & 1, and if the random number is
less than the proportion of plots the species is
selected. Continue until the number in list of
selected species equals the number predicted.
Summary of overall strategy:
• Identify biogeographic region and obtain
predictive models.
• Select pool of candidate species for a specific
site based on range information.
• Divide restoration site into environmentally
homogenous areas, stratifying by topography
and soil.
• Use models to select species number and
composition.
Monitoring – CVS methods
• Trade off between detail and time.
• EEP protocol seamlessly integrates
with CVS methods by allowing a series
of sampling levels.
• MS-Access data-entry tool to assure
standardize data, easy assimilation,
and automated quality control.
• Backend database used for reports
and analysis
Reports & Analysis
• Datasheets for monitoring
• Survival & growth of planted stems
• Direction of compositional change
• Rate of change
• Problems needing attention, such as
exotic species
Information
Infrastrustructure and
Biodiversity Databases
“ … ecology is a science of contingent
generalizations, where future trends depend
(much more than in the physical sciences) on
past history and on the environmental and
biological setting.”
Robert May 1986
Major new data sources
• Site data: climate, soils, topography, etc.
• Taxon attribute data: identification,
phylogeny, distribution, life-history,
functional attributes, etc.
• Occurrence data: attributes of
individuals (e.g., size, age, growth rate) and
taxa (e.g., cover, biomass) that occur or cooccur at a site.
Observation or
Community Type
Locality
Biodiversity
data structure
Observation type database
Observation/
Collection Event
Observation database
Specimen or Object
Occurrence database
Bio-Taxon
Taxonomic database
VegBank
• VegBank is a public archive for vegetation
plot observations (http://vegbank.org).
• VegBank is expected to function for
vegetation plot data in a manner analogous to
GenBank.
• Primary data will be deposited for reference,
novel synthesis, and reanalysis.
• The database architecture is generalizable to
most types of species co-occurrence data.
www.vegbank.org
Opportunities
• Theoretical community ecology. Which taxa occur
together, and where, and following what rules?
• Remote sensing. What is really on the ground?
• Monitoring. What changes are really taking
place in the vegetation?
• Restoration. What should be our restoration
targets?
• Vegetation & species modeling. Where should we
expect species & communities to occur after
environmental changes?
Biodiversity informatics depends on
accurate and precise taxonomy
• Accurate identification and labelling
of organisms is a critical part of
collecting, recording and reporting
biological data.
• Increasingly, research in biodiversity
and ecology is based on the
integration (and re-use) of multiple
datasets.
Taxonomic database challenge:
Standardizing organisms and communities
The problem:
Integration of data potentially
representing different times, places,
investigators and taxonomic standards.
The traditional solution:
A standard list of organisms /
communities.
Standard lists are available for Taxa
Representative examples for higher plants in
North America / US
USDA Plants
http://plants.usda.gov
ITIS
http://www.itis.usda.gov
NatureServe
BONAP
Flora North America
These are intended to be checklists wherein the taxa
recognized perfectly partition all plants. The lists can be
dynamic.
Taxonomic theory
A taxon concept represents a unique
combination of a name and a reference.
Report -- name sec reference.
Name
Concept
Reference
.
One concept ofAbies lasiocarpa
USDA Plants & ITIS
Abies lasiocarpa
var. lasiocarpa
var. arizonica
A narrow concept of Abies lasiocarpa
Flora North America
Abies lasiocarpa
Abies bifolia
Partnership with USDA plants
to provide plant concepts for
data integration
Relationships among concepts
allow comparisons and conversions
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Congruent, equal (=)
Includes (>)
Included in (<)
Overlaps (><)
Disjunct (|)
and others …
High-elevation fir trees of western US
AZ NM
CO WY MT AB eBC
wBC WA OR
Distribution
var. arizonica
Abies lasiocarpa
var. lasiocarpa
USDA & ITIS
Abies bifolia
Abies lasiocarpa
Flora North America
A. lasiocarpa sec USDA
A. lasiocarpa sec USDA
A. lasiocarpa v. lasiocarpa sec USDA
A. lasiocarpa v. lasiocarpa sec USDA
A. lasiocarpa v. arizonica sec USDA
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>
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|
<
A. lasiocarpa sec FNA
A. bifolia sec FNA
A. lasiocarpa sec FNA
A. bifolia sec FNA
A. bifolia sec FNA
Andropogon virginicus complex in the Carolinas
9 elemental units; 17 base concepts; 25 names
Demonstration Projects
Concept relationships of Southeastern US plants
treated in different floras.
Based on > 50,000 mapped concepts
Best practice: Report taxa
by reference to concepts
When reporting the identity of
organisms in publications, data, or on
specimens, provide the full scientific
name of each kind of organism and the
reference that provided the taxonomic
concept.
e.g., Abies lasiocarpa sec. Flora North
America 1997.
Lessons for Horticulturalists
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Which taxa to recommend for restoration
planting ? – CVS descriptions and tools
Determine how well plantings have worked ?
– CVS monitoring
What to grow in anticipation of the market ?
– CVS descriptions & EEP predictions
How to document identifications ?
– NCU concepts
What are the natural conditions under which
a taxon typically grows ?
– CVS database
Case study:
Diversity and invasibility
of southern Appalachian
plant communities.
Montane riparian habitats
New River - Scoured Island
Nolichucky River - Uplands
Nolichucky River –
Bedrock Scour Bar
Little Tennessee River - Floodplain
Mean Species Richness
Native
Exotic
Upland
(1090 plots)
Riparian
(121 plots)
31.12
55.66
0.20
7.98
(268 plots with
exotics)
(110 plots with
exotics)
Kruskal-Wallis: Native Richness Χ2 = 353.2, df = 1, P < 0.0001
Exotic Richness Χ2 = 127.7, df = 1, P < 0.0001
Community saturation at small scales?
Does the degree to which immigration or
extinction processes affect communities
vary with scale?
Relationship between Native and Exotic
Species Richness at a Large Scale
Relationship between Native and Exotic
Species Richness at a Local Scale
Case Study – The lower Roanoke River
Roanoke basin
COMMUNITY TYPE
IA
IB
IIA
IIB
IIC
IIDi
IIDii
IIE
IIF
IIG
IIH
IIIA
IIIB
IIIC
IIIDi
IIIG
IIIDii
IIIE
IIIF
IIIHi
IIIHii
IVA
IVB
V
VIA
VIB
VIC
VID
VIIAi
VIIAii
VIIB
VIIC
VIII
IX
X
VEGETATION CLASS
I.
Upland Oak Forest
II. Mixed Mesic Forest
III. Alluvial Hardwood Forest
IV. Forested Peatland
V. Non-riverine Swamp Forest
VI. Blackwater Swamp Forest
VII. Brownwater Swamp Forest
VIII. Sand and Mud Bar Vegetation
IX. Freshwater Marsh Vegetation
X. Floating Aquatic Vegetation
Elevation (m)
5.5
5
Surface Elevation
4.5
Ragweed Horizon
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900 1000 1100
Distance from River (m)
Darker
Gley
Pre-settlement floodplain surface: -82 cm
Financial Support
• US Forest Service – Savannah River Site;
Clean Air Program; National Forests in NC
• The Nature Conservancy
• NC Heritage Trust Fund
• NC Agricultural Research Service
• Syngenta
• National Park Service
• National Science Foundation
• NC-DENR – Ecosystem Enhancement Program
Why CVS?
• Description, classification, and analysis of
the natural vegetation of the Carolinas
• Determine attributes of individual taxa
• Inventory
• Targets for restoration
• Long-term monitoring – both natural and
modified lands
• It’s fun, and you are invited !!