Adapting the floristic quality assessment index to indicate anthropogenic disturbance in central Pennsylvania wetlands

Miller, Sarah J.; Wardrop, Denice H.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2005.03.012

Cited by 106 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…It is often possible for a site with a large number of species, but with a low mean CC score to receive a higher FQI than a site that has a high mean CC score and low species richness (Taft et al 1997;Miller and Wardrop 2006). Where the marsh was a healthy monotypic stand of S. patens (e.g., reference area in 1995, Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The FQI has been recognized as a useful tool for assessment and monitoring of restoration projects over time (Lopez and Fennessy 2002) since the scores have been shown to correlate well with disturbance indices (Lopez and Fennessy 2002;Cohen et al 2004;Miller and Wardrop 2006). In Florida (Cohen et al 2004), Ohio (Lopez and Fennessy 2002), and Pennsylvania (Miller and Wardrop 2006) for wetlands with a prevalence of anthropogenic disturbance (adjacent to agriculture or industries), FQI scores are low compared to wetlands with more natural influence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…While the FQI has been used as a measure of wetland condition, the standard FQI (FQI std ) has been criticized for being affected by species richness (Andreas et al 2004;Miller and Wardrop 2006). It is often possible for a site with a large number of species, but with a low mean CC score to receive a higher FQI than a site that has a high mean CC score and low species richness (Taft et al 1997;Miller and Wardrop 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Modifications to the FQI have included the addition of non-native species (Andreas et al 2004;Cohen et al 2004) and measures of abundance (Poling et al 2003). The FQI has also been used to determine the level of disturbance in a wetland site, based on the presence of invasive and disturbance-prone species and species indicative of highly disturbed sites (Lopez and Fennessy 2002;Ervin et al 2006;Miller and Wardrop 2006). While an FQI has been developed for coastal prairie habitats in Louisiana (Allain et al 2006), northern Gulf of Mexico coastal marshes lack an established FQI.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Development and use of a floristic quality index for coastal Louisiana marshes

Cretini

Visser

Krauss

et al. 2011

Environ Monit Assess

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The Floristic Quality Index (FQI) has been used as a tool for assessing the integrity of plant communities and for assessing restoration projects in many regions of the USA. Here, we develop a modified FQI (FQI(mod)) for coastal Louisiana wetlands and verify it using 12 years of monitoring data from a coastal restoration project. Plant species that occur in coastal Louisiana were assigned a coefficient of conservatism (CC) score by a local group with expertise in Louisiana coastal vegetation. Species percent cover and both native and non-native species were included in the FQI(mod) which was scaled from 0-100. The FQI(mod) scores from the long-term monitoring project demonstrated the utility of this index for assessing wetland condition over time, including its sensitivity to a hurricane. Ultimately, the FQI developed for coastal Louisiana will be used in conjunction with other wetland indices (e.g., hydrology and soils) to assess wetland condition coastwide and these indices will aid managers in coastal restoration and management decisions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Development and use of a floristic quality index for coastal Louisiana marshes

Cretini

Visser

Krauss

et al. 2011

Environ Monit Assess

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“…From the vegetation community data, we extracted metrics including the FQI score (Miller and Wardrop 2006;Forrest 2010), the relative cover of native perennials, the relative cover of sedge species, and the width of the wet meadow zone. From the wetland-dependent songbird and shorebird community data, we calculated metrics including the richness of temperate migrants, richness of Passeriformes, and the relative abundance of ground nesters, canopy foragers, and omnivores.…”

Section: Ibimentioning

confidence: 99%

The accuracy of land cover-based wetland assessments is influenced by landscape extent

et al. 2012

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Widespread degradation of wetlands has motivated the development of tools to evaluate wetland condition. The application of field-based tools over large regions can be prohibitively expensive; however, land cover data may provide a surrogate for intensive assessments, enabling rapid and cost-effective evaluation of wetlands throughout whole regions. Our goal was to determine if land cover data could be used to estimate the biotic integrity of wetlands in Alberta's Beaverhills watershed. Biotic integrity was measured using both plant-and bird-based indices of biotic integrity (IBIs) in 45 wetlands. Land cover data were extracted from seven nested landscape extents (100-3,000 m radii) and used to model IBI scores. Strong, significant predictions of IBI scores were achieved using land cover data from every spatial extent, even after factoring out the influence of location to address the spatial autocorrelation of land cover classes. Plant-based IBI scores were best predicted using data from 100 m buffers and birdbased IBI scores were best predicted using data extracted from 500 m buffers. Road cover or density and measures of the proportion of disturbed land were consistent predictors of IBI score, suggesting their universal importance to plant and bird communities. Simplified models using the proportion of undisturbed land were less accurate than more detailed models (reductions in r 2 of 0.31-0.32). Regardless of the level of detail in land cover classification, our results emphasize the need to optimize landscape extent for the taxonomic group of interest: an issue that is typically poorly articulated in studies reporting on the development of GIS-based assessment methods. Our results also highlight the need to calibrate models in test areas before scaling up, to ensure predictive accuracy.

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A plant‐based index of biological integrity in permanent marsh wetlands yields consistent scores in dry and wet years

Wilson

Bayley

Rooney

2013

Aquatic Conservation

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ABSTRACT1. Plant-based assessments can contribute to wetland conservation and management by providing a standardized method to monitor biological communities in relation to human activity. One major challenge, however, is that their measurements must be fairly insensitive to temporal variation in community composition, which can be difficult since marsh plant communities are known to be influenced by natural climatic cycles.2. Variation in the scores for an index of biological integrity (IBI) was evaluated in relation to plant community changes that occurred between years with differing precipitation inputs throughout the growing season (dry: 240 mm in 2008, 198 mm in 2009; wet: 324 mm in 2010, 329 mm in 2011). Species composition and IBI scores were measured by sampling macrophytes in the centre of the wet meadow zone at 47 semi-permanent to permanent natural and constructed marshes.3. Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMS) ordinations revealed that although plant community composition shifted between dry and wet years, IBI scores were sensitive to only 21% of the total inter-annual variation in species composition. The first NMS axis was positively correlated with IBI scores (r = 0.85) as well as several environmental parameters (r 2 > 0.2), including dissolved organic carbon, total nitrogen, potassium, shoreline slope, and salinity.4. The wet meadow IBI also yielded consistent scores between dry and wet years (Spearman's rho = 0.82; Wilcoxon z-score = 0.53, P-value = 0.60) and was able to distinguish a change in biological condition among sites against a backdrop of natural variation (F-test = 3.0, P < 0.001).5. These findings provide support for the continued use of plants as indicators of wetland condition in permanent northern prairie marshes, providing that the range in water levels is moderate.

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Adapting the floristic quality assessment index to indicate anthropogenic disturbance in central Pennsylvania wetlands

Cited by 106 publications

References 14 publications

Development and use of a floristic quality index for coastal Louisiana marshes

Development and use of a floristic quality index for coastal Louisiana marshes

The accuracy of land cover-based wetland assessments is influenced by landscape extent

A plant‐based index of biological integrity in permanent marsh wetlands yields consistent scores in dry and wet years

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