| Abstract: | The green standing material, dry standing material and litter in the herbaceous layer of a Central Australian woodland were sampled using sets of nested quadrats of various proportions. By minimizing the product of the time required to obtain the data and the relative variances of the mean weights of material, the optimum size of quadrat necessary for estimating biomass was found to be 1 m2 or less. The optimum shape of quadrat for litter was a very elongate rectangle, with the lengths of its sides in the ratio 1:16. There was no preferred shape for green or dry standing material in this case. No edge effect was detected. A method is given for determining the optimum number of quadrats for a known mean, variance and cost. |
