Plant community response to fuel break construction and goat grazing in a southern California shrubland

Grupenhoff, Ashley; Molinari, Nicole

doi:10.1186/s42408-021-00114-3

Fire Ecology

Table 1 Summary of metrics inventoried. Lifeform categories include tree, live shrub, dead shrub, native herbaceous, and non-native herbaceous

From: Plant community response to fuel break construction and goat grazing in a southern California shrubland

Measurement category	Measurement	Method	Reason	Treatment comparison	Statistical test	Data transformation
Species cover	Percent cover of each species (%)	The number of times an individual of each species was encountered at each of the 100 points along the transect line	Evaluate the compositional differences between intact chaparral and treated fuel break	Untreated vs treated	NMDS
Lifeform cover	Percent cover of each lifeform category (%)	The number of times a lifeform category was encountered at each of the 100 points along the transect line	Evaluate the difference in lifeform cover between intact chaparral and treated fuel break	Untreated vs treated	t-test = all lifeform categories, except Wilcoxon rank-sum for tree cover	Square-root: shrub cover, herb cover
Lifeform cover	Percent cover of each lifeform category (%)		Evaluate the change in lifeform cover due to short-duration goat grazing	Pre-grazing vs post-grazing	t-test	Square-root: herb cover, tree cover
Species richness	Number of species within each lifeform category (count)	Number of unique species encountered along each of the 100 points along the transect line	Evaluate the difference in species richness between intact chaparral and treated fuel break	Untreated vs treated	t-test = all lifeform categories, except Wilcoxon rank-sum for tree richness	Square-root: shrub richness, herb richness
Species richness	Number of species within each lifeform category (count)		Evaluate the change in species richness due to short-duration goat grazing	Pre-grazing vs post-grazing	t-test = all lifeform categories, except Wilcoxon rank-sum for tree richness	Square-root: dead shrub richness, herb richness; Sin: live shrub richness
Lifeform height	Maximum height for each lifeform category (cm)	Average maximum height for each lifeform category encountered along each of the 100 points along the transect line	Evaluate the structural differences between intact chaparral and treated fuel break	Untreated vs treated	t-test = shrub height; Wilcoxon rank-sum = herb height	Square-root: shrub height
Lifeform height	Maximum height for each lifeform category (cm)		Evaluate the structural differences caused by short-duration goat grazing	Pre-grazing vs post-grazing	t-test = shrub height; Wilcoxon rank-sum = herb height

Back to article page