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.