SECN Vegetation Community Monitoring Data, 2009-2010

Final certified observation data for (pilot) vegtation monitoring efforts conducted by the Southeast Coast Network in 2009 and 2010. Vegetation communities are the primary drivers for a range of ecological processes and are integral to the proper function of park ecosystems. They serve as the foundation for food webs and wildlife habitat for many species, and function as a carbon sink, produce oxygen, cycle nutrients and energy through an ecosystem, influence the local climate, improve water quality, and moderate flooding and erosion. Given the widespread anthropogenic influences in Southeast Coast Network (SECN) parks and the importance of vegetation communities, determining trends in vegetation communities is vital to understanding the ecological processes and identifying stressors and their impacts. Given the widespread anthropogenic influences in SECN parks and the importance of vegetation communities, quantifying trends in plant cover, frequency, diversity, and distribution is a high priority. Evaluating trends in plant cover, frequency, diversity and distribution provides measures for assessing the ecological integrity and sustainability of southeastern ecosystems, and identifying the need for specific management activities on our park lands. The National Park Service Omnibus Management Act of 1998, and other reinforcing policies and regulations, require park managers to establish baseline information and to provide information on the long-term trends in the condition of National Park System resources (Title II, Sec. 204). The vegetation-community monitoring data summarized herein is a tool to assist park managers in fulfilling this mandate. Vegetation community monitoring data. Includes data on the canopy, shrub and ground cover strata. Six measures were collected in nested subplots within each plot: canopy cover, shrub cover, diameter at breast height (DBH), canopy-species seedling counts, herbaceous cover, and nested frequency of herbaceous species. All raw cover values represent absolute cover, which is defined as the percent of the ground surface covered by the foliage, branches, stems, and other plant structures of a defined response variable (i.e., species, or the the finest taxonomic resolution possible).

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