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Keenesburg Mine 2014 Vegetation Monitoring Report <br />the average total cover. This reduced the average total cover to 33.8% and is the value used to <br />compare the Reclamation Area to the Success Standard. <br />The two dominant species contributing to the cover in all 10 transects were sand dropseed <br />(Sporobolous cryptandrus), a native warm season perennial grass, and cheatgrass, an introduced, <br />cool season, annual grass. These two species along with prickly lettuce (Lactuca seriola), an <br />introduced annual forb which was hit on nine of the ten transects, contributed 26.6% of the <br />average total cover. <br />The two dominant species contributing to the cover in all 10 transects were sand dropseed <br />(Sporobolous cryptandrus), a native warm season perennial grass, and cheatgrass, an introduced, <br />cool season, annual grass. These two species along with prickly lettuce (Lactuca seriola), an <br />introduced annual forb which was hit on nine of the ten transects, contributed 26.6% of the <br />average total cover. <br />5.1.2 Herbaceous Production <br />Total herbaceous production within Reclamation Area 30 averaged 120.03 g/m2 (1,071 lb /acre) <br />in 2014 (Table 2). Perennial grasses accounted for 42% of this production, while annual forbs <br />accounted for 36 %, perennial forbs 17 %, and annual grasses 5 %. Cheatgrass constituted 4% of <br />the total production and average total production without cheatgrass was 114.87 g /m2 (1,025 <br />lb /acre). This value (without cheatgrass) was used to compare the Reclamation Area to the <br />Success Standard. <br />5.1.3 Species Composition <br />A total of seven life forms and 19 species contributed to the cover data (Table 1) and 29 species <br />were encountered along the transects (Appendix A). Of the species contributing to the cover <br />data, 11 were grasses and 8 were forbs, 15 were native and four were introduced (Table 3). <br />Perennial species outnumbered annual species by ten to nine. Both warm and cool season grass <br />species contributed to the cover, but warm season species outnumbered cool season species by <br />eight to three. <br />Relative cover was calculated using both the first and second hit data from each transect. A total <br />of nine species contributed more than 3% of the relative cover (Table 1) including four warm <br />season perennial native grasses, one cool season annual introduced grass, three annual introduced <br />forbs, and one annual native forb. These species in rank order (highest to lowest) include: <br />cheatgrass, prickly lettuce, sand dropseed, kochia (Kochia scoparia), Canadian horseweed <br />(Conyza canadensis), sand bluestem (Andropogon hallii), blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), <br />Russian thistle (Salsola tragus), and prairie sandreed (Calamovilfa longifolia). <br />Habitat Management, Inc. 8 September 2014 <br />