Generating Quantitative Regional Plant Community Descriptions for Restoration
2009
Lane, Cynthia P. | Texler, Hannah D.
Information from reference sites is often used as an aid for planning and assessing native plant community restorations. However, restorations often proceed with inadequate reference information because there are insufficient resources to locate suitable sites and/or collect the data. As one means of providing reference information, we developed methods for using a large existing dataset to develop quantitative reference community descriptions for three ecological subsections in east-central Minnesota. We used data gathered from remnant plant communities within the same region as potential restoration sites. Our data source was 325 vegetation plots (or "relevés") and the results of recent cluster analysis work that grouped relevés into native plant communities for the region. The remnant natural areas sampled were distributed throughout the study area and varied in patch size. For each community type, we calculated the average frequency and abundance for each species. We also calculated an index of commonness as a product of frequency and abundance. Using this methodology, we generated lists for 31 native plant communities. We discuss the use of these lists to set restoration goals, guide restoration strategies, and/or assess restoration efforts and present some of the strengths and weaknesses of our approach.
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