INAI Workshop #1
Natural Community Quality Evaluation & Field Data Collection
Presentations (available on the INAI web site)
Brian Anderson: “The Illinois Natural Areas Inventory – This Ain’t Your Grandma’s INAI”
He stated the challenges for today’s discussions:
-Need to balance changes versus sticking with the old ways
-Need to balance scientific rigor versus efficiency and practicality
John Wilker: “The Illinois Natural Areas Inventory – The Original INAI and How it is Used Now”
Bob Szafoni: INAI Vegetation Surveys: Then and Now
Randy Nyboer: “Evaluating Natural Quality – The Original INAI Process”
He strongly emphasized the importance of community structure, not just composition.
Jerry Wilhelm: “Using Independent Statistics to Assess the Efficacy of INAI Natural Quality Grades”
John Taft: “Floristic Quality Assessment as a Tool for Natural Areas Assessment”
Taft indicated that Mean C and FQI can contribute novel information with regard to floristic integrity and at times direct measures of species richness alone can be insensitive to floristic integrity. There was a theoretical basis to expect this (intermediate disturbance hypothesis). Further, that Mean C and FQI were more highly correlated with density of plant functional groups than direct measures of diversity and that plant functional group density was a good predictor of habitat quality. Also, that for a full assessment, it would be helpful to examine both weighted and direct measures rather than relying on only one or the other.
Marlin Bowles: “Using Independent Statistics to Assess the Efficacy of INAI Natural Quality Grades”
Functional groups appear to be a good method to help evaluate prairies.
Steve Apfelbaum: “Overview of Field Sampling and Data Sufficiency Methods”
Panel Discussion
1. Are there implications of Wilhelm, Taft & Bowles regarding data collection?
Wilhelm: Optimal is ¼ m sq – 1 m sq
It is difficult to do; there is a fatigue factor in locating all species in a 1 m sq, so they examined ¼ and 1/16 meter square. The most repeatable is ¼ m sq. The type of community does not matter. Efficiency of data collection has to be balanced against repeatability.
Bowles: 1 m sq is better for forest sampling; ¼ m-sq is best for species-rich graminoid communities – fatigue really is a problem for larger plots in grasslands. Nested plots can be used to accommodate both.
Taft argued for uniformity of plot size.
Apfelbaum: 1 m sq provides better results for the time spent sampling. They use 2 people in sampling to help relieve the fatigue that Wilhelm referred to. One person identifies plants and one records.
2. Do we already know how to evaluate the quality of the sites found?
Anderson said that contractually, we were bound to follow the existing vegetation sampling protocols of IDNR, but we can propose alternatives if we think they are appropriate.
3. Should we abandon the qualitative A, B, C grading in favor of a quantitative analysis?
You need a more quantitative approach to evaluate change over time. If we keep the A, B, C grading, is it worth the time to gather the additional data and run the calculations for the more quantitative methods? Taft says that it is not time-consuming to calculate the indices. Wilhelm said that the indices are needed to assess temporal change. No one proposed abandoning the A, B, C grading.
4. Do the existing guidelines provide support for the quality designations? At one time, ground cover data were not being collected in forests, but is now. Wilhelm stated that mean C is valuable and can be readily gotten without sampling (just a species list). It does not matter too much the time you spend – 15 minutes versus 1 hour. He is interesting in evaluating how well the sites are doing over time and not just evaluate quality.
Bowles raised the question as to how you know if the mean C values are right or wrong.
Some participants felt that the B-C separation is more important than the A-B. (I certainly do not agree with this)
Wilhelm argued that any site with a mean C >4.0 is “irreplaceable” and cannot be restored or replaced. We know this because no restoration project has ever exceeded 4.0. Taft did not agree.
Taft uses FQI to verify his empirical evidence. The mean C was based on 60 years of collective field experience so they are fairly confident. He said you can use FQI to help decide borderline cases. Bowles says you can never prove that the mean C is actually right – the FQI is circular.
5. How will we determine what to sample (McClain)? What criteria are there to qualify a site to be on the inventory?
Anderson: Most of the technological changes in the update are related to data management and communication. The fundamental search is the same, although the criteria may be different. We are using the “butts and eyeballs” approach, or as J. White offered, the “brains and eyeballs” method. Our brains are the best analytical tools we have but we need to support what we see with data collection.
6. Will existing INAIs be examined (Ballard)? This needs to be done in order document the changes that have occurred – and to support the work that IDNR’s DHBs have done over the past 15 years. Using Bowles’ methodology statewide would help support fire and other land management.
Response: The original RFP did include the examination of existing INAIs, but there was a funding gap, so this was moved to an unfunded component of the update. New sites will be identified first, but efforts will be made to find funding to do existing INAIs.
Wilker said that the INAI Update was not intended to be a monitoring program. Bowles thought that the data being collected now was sufficient to use in monitoring.
7. Concerns were raised with the Grade “C” and Best of Kind (McFall). If we do not pick these up, we will lose them altogether.
Anderson: The contract requires us to look at best of kind - can we use viability analysis to help? This is also an unfunded component in the INAI RFP. McFall asked if best of its kind analysis should only be done on public lands. Interesting idea.
8. How many new sites do we expect to find (LaGesse)? He has surveyed SangamonCounty and did not find any new INAI quality sites.
9. Handel – can field staff have a mechanism to report high quality sites they are aware of or find?
Anderson: Yes, we will be holding regional meetings to help bring in outside information.
10. Will we make the A grade more restrictive? Will existing INAIs be kicked off the inventory if the criteria are changed or data do no support keeping them on the INAI?
Anderson: There is no interest by the INAI team in reducing the number of INAI sites.
11.The A & B categories were cautious – can we bring in Cs to the INAIs? Is the data there to support this?
Response: We will not do full site evaluations on all sites we identify, so the data may not be there. There is interest in the marginal sites – we will not discard any sites identified.
12. Because landownership in Illinois is mostly private, how can we ensure a high degree of access (Eilers)?
Response: IDNR/NPC staff will be notified of all landowner contacts prior to contact being made so they can assist in gaining access. Placards will be developed for identification purposes. However, if a landowner says “no”, we will not go. It was recommended that we approach groups that have access to landowners such as Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, IFOR, IAS, etc. These groups could be invited to our regional meetings to begin the relationship.
13. Spyreas (CTAP) – He raised questions as to how we will find many new A and B communities. CTAP has found virtually none. Few Category I sites have been added through the CTAP effort.
Taft said he is interest in finding the sites that have restoration potential – the Cs. There is a lot of potential, particularly in oak woodlands.
Guetersloh said that the criteria for an A community should never change. The A communities need to be identified, but the Cs as well – and find a way of protecting them.
McFall asked if we could enlarge the minimum size for forests. Another suggestion from a participant is to use the resource rich area coverages that were completed years ago.
The general consensus from the group was that the vast majority of A and B sites have been found. We need to re-examine grade Cs.
14. How many trips do you need to make to a site to collect the data needed to calculate FQI and mean C?
Taft: This depends on the plant community. For forests, you need to collect data in 2 trips – one in spring and one in the summer, with the summer being more meaningful.
Wilhelm agrees although said there can be complexities.
Note: When we hold the regional ecologists meetings, include IDNR’s wildlife biologists and foresters. They have programs that involve private landowners – CREP, C2000 as well.
15. Taft commented that Grade C is very broad. Does it include sites that are restorable and sites that would require much greater work – rehabilitation? You would need to examine community structure (This topic requires further discussion).
16. Levin asked how quantitative data are now used in the INAI and how they will be used in the future.
Szafoni said that the data are used to support grading decisions made by IDNR’s Natural Areas Evaluation Committee. He would like to see if the sampling data can be more closely tied to the screening process. When challenged by management, they can then provide the data to support their decisions.
Anderson asked if current decisions are based more on what a site is not and needs to be more of what a site is.
A lot of staff do not often feel qualified to evaluate the quality of a site, but can easily be taught vegetative sampling methods which can support quality evaluation.
17. Nyboer asked if any INAI site designations have been legally challenged.
Beth Shimp, US Forest Service, responded that one site was challenged on the ShawneeForest and the FS won using existing data. A second challenge Apfelbaum reported was at Hibernia in LakeCounty. He said he knows of 4 additional cases where indices have not withstood legal scrutiny because they could not be defended. No specifics were provided (need to find the details of these cases).
18. Guetersloh again questioned Jack White’s assessment that we will find new sites.
White responded that the INAI Update is likely to identify roughly 10 times as many potential natural areas and twice as many natural areas as the original INAI. This conclusion is based on three recent regional inventories (covering all or part of 11 counties). Four factors will cause the increase: better aerial photography than was available in the 1970s, better training and instructions, more painstaking application of the search techniques, and application of somewhat more liberal criteria for identifying potential natural areas. The initial selection criteria will be lowered slightly to help ensure that marginal but significant sites are not overlooked at the outset simply because they look the same as average, non-qualifying sites. The standards for selecting sites that finally qualify as natural areas will not be lowered. Most of the new INAI sites will be small ones on unusual soils (e.g. seeps). The acreage of natural areas of statewide significance will not double unless new standards are applied (for instance, to include extensive areas of average, mature forest).]
19. Dees said she has read INHS botanical reports for 13 years – original INAI sites, especially forests, have low FQIs. They also find new locations of listed species on sites. She has to convince engineers that an INAI site filled with exotic species is worth protecting. They often give FPDs money to replant these sites. She encourages us to revisit the issue of examining existing INAIs.
20. Wilker explained the costs and scope of the project. The original estimated cost for the update was $6.0-6.5 million. IDNR only had $4.5 million, so core tasks were identified to fund initially. Additional tasks were identified to secure funding for separately. Revisiting existing INAI and conducting viability analysis are two of these. Bowles supported the need to evaluate existing INAIs – keep the old and new in context.
Kruse said that it is hoped that 2-3 regional ecologists will ultimately be kept on to maintain the INAI once the update is completed. The priority is to find sites not yet identified. The prototype for the regional ecologists is that be early in their career and have a strong background in botany.
21. Did the original INAI look at disturbance issues more so than vegetative components?
Nyboer said they looked at the lack of disturbance.
Tecic said she is interested in the various indices and suggested that a number of them could be used to discern the difference between B and Cs.
Kemper asked how we use disturbance in the INAI update. There have been beneficial disturbances as well as negative. Newman suggested using the term “degradation” rather than “disturbance”. Management can involve “disturbances” such as cutting trees and use of fire.
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