Portier_et_al_2022

Jeanne Portier, Florian Zellweger, Jürgen Zell, Iciar Alberdi Asensio, Michal Bosela, Johannes Breidenbach, Vladimír Šebeň, Rafael O. Wüest, Brigitte Rohner (2022) Plot size matters: Toward comparable species richnesss estimates across plot-based inventories. Ecology and Evolution 12(6):e8965.https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8965

Keywords: rarefaction, stats, methods

  • size of monitored plots directly affects how many species can be found

  • SR increases non-linearly with the area of the sampling units

  • SR should always be reported with plot size

  • recommend up scaling data using rarefaction curves

  • randomly sampled each plot size and aggregated to create mega-plots (mega-plots were a size comparable to other forest survey plot sizes)

  • aggregated plots prone to over-inflation of species because of environmental heterogeneity

  • calculated env heterogeneity in mega-plots

  • used env heterogeneity-adjusted rarefaction curves to model SR at larger plot sizes

  • ch 2: rarefaction curves for large plots and mini plots

    • separate by park type? most of environmental heterogeneity
    • do I have enough plots to do this? they created mega-plots using replicates of 500