[APWG] Vegetation survey--100 paces per square mile per year, works

[Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company]

Dear Wayne and All,

Thanks for your email.

First, I hope that everyone will agree, that any vegetation cover survey
done once a year is better than none at all?  None at all, is usually what
the public land managers in my area have been doing with wildflower fields
and grassland habitats, for the last 50-100 years.

I am talking about the State highway dept., National Parks Service, State
parks, County parks, city parks with native grassland habitat, Habitat
Conservation Plan lands, Open space districts and private non-profits
whose purpose is to buy open space.   In my area, we do not have any USFS
or BLM lands, otherwise they would also be included too.

We need a very, very simple method to check on the kids each year in our
public native grasslands and wildflower fields.  And the 100-pace
toe-point has proven to be the best so far.   How many Toe-points are
needed to check on the kids?

A single 100-pace Evans & Love toe-point for every 100 square miles for
each contiguous grassland area, conducted annually in the same spot each
year, is adequate to see if the kids are still there.

If you have the people with the botany skills and the funding, then one
100-pace toe-point per every square mile of public grasslands each year is
even better, and that is the goal that I have for the grasslands and
wildflower fields in my area.

However, if you have an extreme number of grassland acres, like a
contiguous 31 million acres in another country, then you may need to
switch to a 100-pace toe point at every degree of latitude and longitude
(70 x 70 miles), which would mean at least 10 toe-point transects for an
area that large, conducted each year.

The reason is, that you are only gathering data with your Toe-points to
grade your grassland habitat and wildflower fields into one of the broad
quality categories, like Very Poor = 0-25% native cover, etc., at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/WMA.html.

When you put your grasslands into one of the broad categories, it may be
surprising to see how the exact same category is spread over a huge area. 
In California, the Very Poor category can be a solid patch 100 miles wide
and 200 miles long, for example.  Or the whole Yellowstone Park in 1997
was in the Excellent category.

We tested the Toe-point method earlier this year, when a dozen people went
out and each person independently gathered the data for the 100-paces
through a serpentine grassland in a Redwood City Park--and we all came up
with the same quality category.

Having taught classes to BLM and the USFS in nine Western States during
the 1990s, I got to see the enormous scope of public land management that
is out there.

Doing a very simple annual survey like this for grassland and wildflower
field habitats, using the 100-pace toe point and a minimum of every 100
square miles, will at least start to check on the kids.

However, for our highway departments, instead of the 100-pace toe-point, I
would suggest the every post-mile transect, and do a megatransect each
year down all of your roads.  I did 3,000 miles that way from California
to South Dakota and back in 1997
<http://www.ecoseeds.com/megatransect.htm>, and also 2,000 miles for the
Saharan mustard in 2005 <http://www.ecoseeds.com/mustards.html>.

When you are an agency like the USFS or BLM, and you have hundreds of
millions of acres, or a State highway agency with tens of thousands of
road miles, simple is the only way that works.

If you want to add an important application to the 100-pace toe-point, you
can note what the basal diameter is for each species of native grass that
you encounter in your transect.  I put that data into size categories,
like <1", 1-2", 2-3", 3-4" etc.

This grass plant basal diameter data helps you build an age pyramid for
your grass species in the area, and to see if the populations are
reproducing or not.  Are you only encountering only old grandpa grasses,
or do you see some young seedlings sprouting up?

If anyone goes out to do the 100-pace toe point, I will be interested to
hear if you  find any in the Excellent category=91-99% or the As good as
it gets=99.5 to 100% native cover.  And if it is on public lands, please
give us directions so we can all come and see it, if we are in the area.

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333