Measuring vegetation structure

When we discribe a site we often begin by

describing what the vegetation looks like. We use
term such as open woodland (açıq meşə sahəsi )
or sagebrush steppe (Çöl adaçayı), mountain
meadows (çəmənliklər) or tall grass prairie
(Çayır). The term that we use evoke images of
what the vegetation looks like as well as the
species that are included. It provides information
about the three-dimensional or spatial
arrangement of the plants, and we refer to this the three-dimensional arrangement of plants.

As vegetation structure is an important

attribute for both wildlife and livestock
management, because it provides essential
information about different qualities of wildlife
habitat, especially wildlife cover. For example, we
can get information about the amount of cover
available for shelter for nesting or bedding or for
thermal regulation or cover for concealment, such
as hiding cover or for hunting or escape cover,
because animals interact with their environment
as they move through it.

Well, vegetation structure is the three-

dimensional distribution of plant biomass, but
how do we actually measure it? If we look at
these two pictures here, they are both open
woodlands but they have very different
arrangement of plant material. You can see in the
image on the left there is a shrub layer but not
much of an herbaceous component compared to
the image on the right. Where there is a lot of
material in the herbaceous layer and not nearly as
many shrubs in order to describe the three-
dimensional nature of vegetation. We need
describe both the horizontal cover and vertical
cover.

In order to measure vegetation structure

we often take multiple measurements that are
most often used to describe vegetation structure
are canopy cover, gap intercept, vegetation
height, and visual obstruction.
 Now canopy cover characterizes
horizontal cover and we have already reviewed
this we know that when we measure canopy
cover and report it. We often are reporting total
cover but we do not have information about plant
spacing reporting total cover but we do not have
information about plant spacing. Line-point
intercept is one of the best methods that we will
be looking at.

Gap intercept also characterizes horizontal cover

but in this case we are able to get information
about plant spacing or arrangements of plants with
gap intercept. We can report either canopy gaps or
basal gaps. If we look at this illustration here we see a number of plants that are intersected by a
transect and these plants have canopy, larger part and
then there is a darker part in each one which
represents the base of the plant. We can measure
either the canopy gaps, or the distance along the
transect between the canopy. This is the very similar
to continuous line intercept method that is in reverse,
we are not measuring the length of the canopy, we are
measuring the length of the interception of the gaps
between canopies. We can also measure basal gaps
the length of these basal gaps provides information
about vegetation structure that is useful in certain
situations. In most cases canopy gap intercept
information is used for vegetation structure although basal gap information may be applicable for
certain systems.

The way that we measure this is we have to decide

where a gap starts and where it ends. In order to start
gap has to have a minimum length of at least 20
centimeters. And we decide gap is broken or we will end
the measurement on a gap. If 50 percent of a three
centimeter segment is broken by canopy.
 For example, we see a gap that starts at
38santimeters and 77 centimeters for a total
gap length of 39 centimeters.

Now you may have wondered why we did

not draw this gap out to this larger canopy
here, because of this rule, the 3cm segment
has been broken, more than 50 % of a 3 cm
segment includes canopy< because of that,
the gap does not extend beyond this point.

There is another candidate gap over here. We

would start this at 140 cm and end it at 152
cm, because it is less than 20 centimeters. We
would not consider that to be a gap. Now
instead of just totaling all the gaps sizes
overall in order to be able to talk about the
spatial distribution of plants and so with gap
intercept data.

We analyze the data by summarizing the gaps

into different gap size classes. Here we see
diagram showing a 10-meter transect that is
interesting three different hypothetical plant
communities. They have different spatial
arrangements. We can see in Transect A that the
plants are clumped together with very large gaps
in between. Transect B, the plants are a little bit
more distributed and the gap sizes tend to be smaller and in Transect C we can see that the gap sizes
are generally quite small.

If we analyze this, we would

report that 100 percent of the gaps in
Transect A were in the largest gap class
which is greater 200 centimeters and
in transect C. 87 % of the gaps were in
the smallest size class for gaps, 25 to
50 centimeters. This kind of
information gives us important data to
relate to vegetation structure.

Vegetation height is the first type of

measurements were going to look at
that characterizes vertical cover.
When we are measuring vegetation
height we measure the height of both
woody and herbaceous layers. This is
usually done using a height stick as
you see the observer using in the image and we take multiple measurements along a transect.

The way this works is by envisioning an

imaginary cylinder around the height
stick that is 30 centimeters in
diameter. And we can use a couple of
tools to make sure that we maintain
this cylinder. We can see either use a
disc, kind of like a Frisbee with a hole
cut out that can move up and down
the height stick or we can use a ruler
that is either 30 centimeters in length
or 15 centimeters. If we are going to
looking at the radius you can see here the observer is using a ruler that is 30 centimeters in length,
or 12 inches and it is centered on the height stick.

Now the way we take the

measurements is by observing the
plants and the plant material that
occurs inside this. Imaginary cylinder
in this case, remember we are going
to measure both woody plant and
herbaceous plant height we measure
the maximum height of woody plant
material where it occurs inside this
imaginary cylinder and so that would
be at 40 cm. For the herbaceous plants that occurs within the confines of the cylinder and would
take the measurement on the grass plant at 19 cm because it is the tallest part of herbaceous
material that occurs within that cylinder would record this species as well as the height for both
herbaceous and the woody plant. Note that we don’t measure the tallest part of the grass that
occurs outside of the cylinder and these measurements usually are taken as multiple measurements
along a transect and you simply average the values of the height measurements of both woody and
herbaceous component.