Assessing vegetation condition in temperate montane grasslands |
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Authors: | Julian Seddon Mark Bourne Danielle Murphy Stuart Doyle Sue Briggs |
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Affiliation: | 1. (NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, c/‐ CSIRO, GPO Box 284, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia;2. Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia;3. Email: sue.briggs@canberra.edu.au). |
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Abstract: | Rapid assessment techniques are commonly used for measuring vegetation condition at sites. Techniques for measuring site condition need to be quantitative, repeatable, rapid and simple. The key challenge is achieving a balance between simple techniques and adequate discrimination of condition between sites. This study compared a grassland condition index with the existing BioMetric condition index and showed that (i) the grassland index provided a strong measure of the relationship of temperate montane grassland sites with disturbance level, and differentiated condition of sites to a high degree and (ii) the simpler BioMetric index provided a strong measure of the relationship of the grassland sites with disturbance and differentiated their condition to a moderate degree. The choice of index to assess grassland condition should depend on purpose, cost and capacity. |
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Keywords: | benchmarks condition index grasslands rapid site assessment vegetation condition |
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