Applied Informatics for Studies of Vegetation Alliances: A Case Study Michael Jennings

1. Applied Informatics for Studies of • Vegetation Alliances: • A Case Study • Michael Jennings • U.S. Geological Survey / • University of Idaho • jennings@uidaho.edu

2. Vegetation Alliance • A vegetation classification unit containing one or more associations, and defined by a characteristic range of species composition, habitat conditions, physiognomy, and diagnostic species, typically at least one of which is found in the uppermost or dominant stratum of the vegetation. • (ESA Vegetation Panel 2004, www.esa.org/vegweb)

3. Quercus Garryana Forest and Woodland Alliances Pseudotsuga Menziesii - Quercus Garryana Woodland Alliance Pinus Ponderosa - Quercus Garryana Woodland Alliance Portions of Washington and Oregon, USA

4. Structural problems that limit work on the ecology of vegetation alliances: • the quantity of field samples needed, • data that are interoperable (e.g., species composition, climate, morphological traits), • the quantitative descriptions.

5. The purpose of this study is to examine: • The processes needed for integrating field plot and other data from multiple sources. • Methods for assigning plot data to an accepted alliance.

6. Study Area

7. A Field Plot Dataset from Multiple Sources: • The sources • Univariate outliers • Standardizing species names • Assigning plots to alliances • Multivariate outliers • Testing for null • Reducing dimensionality and visualizing the data • Using the plot data set with climate and productivity modeled data.

8. British Columbia Washington Oregon The Data: 39,131 Vegetation Field Plots from 11 Sources

9. Sources and amounts of field plots.

10. Univariate Outliers

11. Standardizing species names

12. Assigning Plots to Alliances Query Parameters: • dominant species identity and canopy cover • associated species and canopy covers • geographic range • elevation range • ground slope gradient • ground slope aspect

13. Assigning Plots to Alliances • A query example: • SELECT DISTINCT ….. • FROM ….. • WHERE (((DomSp_New.AllianceKey)="A1000") And ((DomSp)="ALSI3") And ((([Basic plot info 18].[Can_Cov 1])>DomSp_New!SpCov_L)) And ((([Basic plot info 18].[Can_Cov 2])<DomSp_New!SpCov_H)) And ((([ELEVATIO]*3.048))>1200) And (([Basic plot info 18].LON)<-119));

14. Outliers of the Artemisia Arbuscula Alliance Plots

15. Mantel Test* • Evaluates correlation and significance of correlation between distance matrices. • Used here to test the null hypothesis that the classified plot members of an alliance have no more floristic similarity than would randomly selected sets of plot records * Mantel 1967, Sokal 1979, McCune & Grace 2002

16. Data flow of the multivariate outlier analysis and the Mantel test

17. Mantel Test • Survival Criteria: • p < 0.1 • r < 0.3 • Results: • 7 alliance plot sets had p > 0.1 • 1 set had r > 0.3 (Abies Lasiocarpa Krummholz ) • 49 sets survived • 8,919 field plots remained

18. Nonmetric Multidimentional ScalingOrdination Used to examine the floristic relationship of the plots within and among alliances. • Classified plots were grouped by general types: • forest / woodland • shrub • herbaceous • Criteria: • Sorenson distance measure • three dimensions • 100 maximum iterations

19. Axis 3 Axis 2 Axis 1 NMS Results A total of 1,494 field plots comprising 20 shrub alliances. Artemisia Tridentada Shrub Alliance (all vars.) plots are shown in black, n=494. All other plots are shown in red.

20. NMS Results Forest and Woodland Alliances 2 3 7 1 10 9 6 11 4 8 15 12 5 19 13 18 14 17 16 20

21. Techniques for Classifying and Understanding Vegetation • The remote sensing and information technology that used in solving problems such as biodiversity loss can only be as good as our knowledge of plant community ecology on the ground. • A focus on measures of vegetation alliances is a good place to begin.

24. 1 2 3 4 5 6 9 10 7 8 11 15 20 19 12 16 18 14 13 17 5 6 13 10 12 8 9 14 4 17 11 18 7 3 16 2 1 15 19 20 Mean Similarity Among and Variability Within Shrubland Alliance Field Plots With and Without Dominant Species Subdominant Species Only Dominant and Subdominant Species Alliance Acronyms

25. jennings@uidaho.edu