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e <br />ESPEY, HUSTON & ASSOCIATES, INC. <br />• <br />affected community. Differences in productivity result from vaziation in individual <br />shrub densities between the sites. Also, dominant understory herbaceous species in <br />the affected community tend to be lazger plants with a greater biomass (see <br />reference cover and productivity Tables K-14 and K-15 and affected cover and <br />productivity Tables R-6 and K-7). <br />Species diversity for the mountain shrub reference community is inter <br />mediate between the big sagebrush and meadow reference communities with a <br />diversity index of 36.6. Forty-three species were encountered on fifteen transects. <br />Equitability or evenness of cover distribution among species was the highest among <br />reference communities with an index of 1.1q. This relatively high equitability index <br />is caused by a lazge number of dominant species in the shrub and herb strata of this <br />community. Both the diversity and equitability indices of the mountain shrub <br />reference community are lower than those of the mountain shrub affected com- <br />• munity. This is probably due to the much smaller size of the reference community <br />and the subsequent reduction in possible micro-habitats which produced the vazied <br />flora of the affected community. <br />The affected and reference communities show a moderate overlap of <br />species cover with a 56.2 percent similazity index. Both of these azeas are <br />dominated by their shrub strata, although there are slight differences in the <br />understory species present. Productivity was slightly higher in the affected azea <br />(see Table K-11). <br />• <br />K-44 <br />