Laserfiche WebLink
The sample point locations, and line or belt transect origins were located on the ground by <br />pacing the required distances and directions from recognizable landmarks on the base map <br />such as fence lines, corner posts, road intersections, and building corners. Once the vicinity of <br />the sample point was found, a stake was thrown over the observers shoulder to identify the <br />exact location where the sampling point would be located. <br />4.6 Vegetation Cover and Frequency - 1987 Quantitative measurements of vegetation cover <br />and plant species frequency were made in the sagebrush, irrigated pasture and <br />swale /drainage vegetation types. <br />Vegetation cover data was collected in the sagebrush type by the point- intercept technique <br />applied by use of an optical point bar (Mueller - Dombois and Ellenberg 1974; Viert 1985; <br />Buckner 1985). The data was collected on July 9 and 10, 1987. The sampling design <br />consisted of groups of ten points sampled at 2m intervals along a 20m transect to achieve 100 <br />points per transect. Thirty transects were sampled. Each group of ten points, with a 10cm <br />interval between each point, was oriented perpendicular to the transect such that five points <br />were projected vertically downward (or upward for overhanging canopy) on each opposing side <br />of the transect. At each point, the first contact of a plant species was recorded as a "hit'. In <br />cases where vegetation was not contacted, either bare ground (soil), litter, or rock hits were <br />recorded. Each hit represented one percent cover for a transect. For example, a plant <br />species that was contacted 15 times on a transect had an estimated cover of 15 percent for <br />that particular transect ((15/100) x 100). Since the points were situated systematically along <br />the randomly - located transects, each transect (i.e., 100 data points) represented an <br />observation in the sample. Therefore, the estimated mean cover for a particular species in the <br />vegetation type as a whole was derived by summing the percent cover measured on each <br />transect and dividing by the total number of transects sampled. <br />The point- intercept technique was also used to collect vegetation cover data in the irrigated <br />pasture type, although the sampling design was modified to accommodate the inherently <br />greater cover found in the type as compared to that encountered in the sagebrush. The <br />samples were collected on September 15 and 16, 1987. The sampling design consisted of 25 <br />pairs of points, sampled at 1 m intervals along a 25m transect to achieve 50 points per <br />transect. A minimum of 15 transects, distributed throughout the type, were sampled. The two <br />August 2013 (PR 08) 2.04.10 -16 <br />