جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « plot shape » در نشریات گروه « اکولوژی »

The distribution pattern of plants is an important characteristic of plant communities, being of critical importance in ecological studies and sampling plans. This study was designed to investigate the efficiency of different shapes and sizes of quadrants to delineate the spatial patterns of Astragalus verus Olivier by using dispersion indices. At Mayan Rangeland (Khorasan Razavi), a digital camera and R software were used to locate the coordinates of individual plants and to demarcate the boundary of the study area. We used plots of different shapes, square, wide rectangular and long rectangular, with the areas of 1, 2, 4, and 8 m2, for a total of 12 combinations of shapes and sizes. The distribution indices used included Green, Lioyd, Morisita, and the Standardized Index of Morisita. The results of the study showed that the standard Morisita's index and Morisita’s index had the same distribution patterns in all shapes and sizes of plots. These two indices were not affected by plot size and shape in displaying the distribution pattern. The current study alsoshowed that Morisita’s and standard Morisita’s indices were more precise in comporison with Green and Lioyd indeces.

To investigate the effects of plot size, shape and number on accuracy and precision of the estimates, forage production data of 5 regions of northern pastures of the country, collected separately by 640 one-square meter plots, were simulated using R software in a 640 m2 macro- plot with dimensions 20×32 m. The adequate sample size of different plot sizes of 1×1, 1×2, 2×2, 2×4, 4×4 and 4x8 m were obtained by the sketch method which were 60, 50, 40 ,30, 5, and 5, respectively. When the plot was sampled in different levels and shape based on the adequate plot numbers, almost all of them showed a mean equal to the actual mean. However, the highest precision was obtained using a 1x1 plot with the lowest SE. Comparison of plots with the same size and different shapes revealed that long-length rectangle plots show the highest precision. It is obvious that in actual situation of non-simulated studies with unknown parameters, the sampling guidelines of this paper will be helpful for proper and accurate estimation of the parameters.