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DISCUSSION <br />Cover <br />As can be seen in Table 1, 1998 cover averaged 30.5 percent, down from <br />1997 when cover averaged 45.9 percent. Most of this decline is attributable to <br />the reduction in cover by introduced annual and biennial fbrbs. and introduced <br />annual grasses. 1n 1997 one-half the total vegetation cover was annual species, <br />and in 1996, annual species comprised two thirds of total vegetation cover. In <br />1998, this proportion was down to 10. percent. That this represents a <br />positive trend is reflected in the fact that perennial species in 1998 (Table 6) <br />comprised 89.2 percent of total vegetation cover (compared to 59.1 percent <br />of total vegetation cover in 1997 and 36.4 percent of total vegetation cover <br />in 1996) . Of this amount, native perennial species were 78.7 percent of total <br />• vegetation cover (compared to 45.1 percent of total vegetation cover in 1997 <br />and 32.1 percent in 1996) and introduced perennial species were 10.5 percent <br />of total vegetation cover (compared to 5.5 percent of total vegetation cover <br />in 1997 and 4.3 percent in 1996). Absolute cover by introduced perennial <br />grasses declined in 1998, but cicer milkvetch and alfalfa increased. <br />Although the trend in species composition is positive; the absolute level of cover <br />30.5 percent would be likely to fall short of the performance standard. Though <br />the Seneca II-W extended reference areas were not sampled in 1998 to develop <br />the actual 1998 performance standard, the standard for Seneca II, based on <br />its reference areas for 1998 was 46.6 percent. <br />~J <br />10 <br />