The Nature Conservancy: A Pilot Season for

Cooperative Grassland Monitoring

Meredith CornettDirector of Conservation ScienceThe Nature ConservancyMinnesota, North Dakota, South DakotaNovember 14, 2007

©Eric Stubbs NASA

• New charge – make measures useful – BY DESIGN

• Measures seen as last step - often neglected

• Many examples of ineffective monitoring failing to inform ineffective management

Improvements Needed

Defining Your Project

Developing Strategies &

Measures

Implementing Strategies &

Measures

Using Results to Adapt & Improve

Defining Your Project

Developing Strategies &

Measures

Implementing Strategies &

Measures

Using Results to Adapt & Improve

Developing Strategies & Measures

· Target viability· Critical threats· Situation analysis· Objectives & actions· Measures

Status(2) How is the biodiversity we care about

doing?

This project has potential to address both needs for some variables.

Effectiveness(1) Are our conservation actions

having their intended impact?

Effectiveness vs. status measures

Landscapes of Interest

Scale: Each site is a datapoint.

Vital Statistics

• # Sites Sampled = 6

• # Acres Sampled = 1,114

• Field time: Averaged 1 transect/hour including travel and set-up. Considering only sample time, it takes 20 to 45 minutes depending on the vegetation.

• Transect Density = 1 per 10 acres – (too dense for relatively homogeneous conditions?)

Natives/Exotics

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1HiM1 2FuchsE 2Fuchs 2Johnson 3Leif 3Sheep

ExoticDom

Intermixed

NativeDom

n=45 n=10 n=9 n=7 n=24 n=19

Management Objective: Maintain or increase % cover of native prairie vegetation relative to invasive/exotic vegetation.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

ABRFU ABRFUE ABRJOH PRCHIM OGLLEI OGLSHE

POAPRA

BROINE

AGRspp

ELYREP

MELspp

Top Exotics: Occurring at All

Sites

n=9 n=10 n=7 n=45 n=24 n=19

Management Objective: Minimize % cover of invasive/exotic vegetation, with particular attention to a short list of species.

Quality Indicators

Management Objective: Maintain current frequency of quality indicators (e.g., grazing sensitive species) across the landscape.

• Is rotational grazing compatible with

maintaining desired structure and composition?

Quality Indicators:

Prairie Coteau Example

SpeciesProportion

Transects

Narrow-leaved Purple Coneflower 0.35

Pasque Flower 0.325

Purple Prairie Clover 0.325

Showy Milkweed 0.225

Silky Aster 0.15

Tall Meadow-rue 0.125

Dotted Blazing Star 0.075

Tall Cinquefoil 0.075

Ground Plum 0.05

White Prairie Clover 0.05

Rough Blazing Star 0.025

Species Proportion Transects

Indian Grass 0.5

Plains Muhly 0.225

Prairie Dropseed 0.175

Thread-leaved Sedge 0.025

SpeciesProportion

Transects

Leadplant 0.25

Fragrant False Indigo 0.025

Forbs Graminoids

Shrubs

Structure: Vegetation

Transect vs. Plot Dominants

Transect

POAPRA

BROINE STISPA

ANDSCO

BOUCUR

ANDGER

SYMOCC HELRIG

SORNUT PANVIR

PHAARU

SOLCAN

HELMAX

SPOHET

KOEMAC

6                              

8                              

9                              

20                              

21                              

38                              

Structure: Litter

Litter

00.5

11.5

22.5

33.5

44.5

ABRfuch

s

ABRfuch

se

ABRjohns

on

OGLlief

OGLsheep

PChitm

P1

PChitm

P2

Site

Lit

ter

(cm

)

Robel: G Transects –

Prairie Coteau Habitat

PartnershipMeanRobel

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V

Owner

Mea

n R

ob

el

Robel: PCHPProportions

Matter

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

0.4

0.45

1 2 3 4 5

Height Category (dm)

Pro

po

rtio

n

Management Objective: Restore the full range of structural variability across the landscape, with all height classes represented.

Your Help Needed

• Peer review of methods, etc.– Robel vs. height measurements every

5m (redundant? Other redundancies?)– Transect density

• Design issues – if to set up an adaptive management experiment

• Support for data management

Possibilities for Next Field

Season• Quality control: Possibly

resample each others’ transects to determine repeatability of our methods?

• Drop dominant species for each plot, just do checklist for transect (TNC)?

• Compare with “G-Transect” method (or does it matter?)

• Even higher level of coordination?

Issues

• Robel: Transects on steep slopes• Vegetation height: Estimated average

height of the majority of vegetation in immediate area of meter stick (to max of 0.5 m radius)

• Plant groups: Bulk of time spent making decisions about vegetation within each 0.5 m quadrat

• Assessing dominant species within each quadrat added 5-10 m per transect

Issues, Continued

• Plant groups: wet meadow – misclassification could lead to inappropriate data collection

• Vegetation cover: used relative rather than absolute cover

• Vegetation cover: added category “other” for bare ground