Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER Data Set Details

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GCE-LTER Data Set Summary

Accession:

PLT-GCET-0711

Research Theme:

Plant Ecology (Graduate Thesis Study)

Contributors:

Amy E. Kunza Vargas, Steve Pennings

Title:

Plant richness survey of mainland and barrier island locations along the Texas Gulf Coast in April and May 2005

Abstract:

I conducted a plant richness survey of 49 sites on the Texas Gulf Coast in the Spring (April-May) of 2005. Sites were chosen to include a range of mainland and barrier island locations. All sites were dominated by salt marsh plant species, primarily Spartina alterniflora. To provide a general indication of the salinity conditions prevailing at each site, I measured salinity of the nearest body of water with a refractometer on the date that the site was sampled. Plant richness was documented along a single 5.0m wide transect at each site. Each transect began at the lower elevational limit of vegetation and continued perpendicular to the water's edge to the shrub community at the upper marsh border. Plant presence was noted in a series of nested subplots within a 1.0m x 5.0m plot at each meter along the transect. The results posted here are sites, position, salinity, and the site pool, or species encountered at the site. This data set is a companion to PLT-GCET-0608, which provides similar data for sites around Sapelo Island, Georgia.

DOI:

10.6073/pasta/18e730221dd8a554a3a49bb2a6bfa364

Key Words:

barrier island, community composition, Gulf of Mexico, hammock, marshes, plant communities, plant cover, plants, shoot height, species richness, terrestrial, Texas

LTER Core Area:

Population Studies

Research Themes:

GCE2 Q2 - Domain Patterns, Plant Ecology, Population Ecology

Study Period:

20-Apr-2005 to 25-May-2005

Study Sites:

TexasGulf -- Texas Gulf Coast, Texas, USA

» Download Geographic Coverage: Google Earth

Species References:

Agalinis maritima, Avicennia germinans, Baccharis halimifolia, Batis maritima, Borrichia frutescens, Cuscuta indecora, Cynanchum angustifolium, Distichlis spicata, Eustoma exaltatum, Helianthus annuus, Iva frutescens, Juncus roemerianus, Limonium carolinianum, Lycium carolinianum, Monanthochloe littoralis, Opuntia humifusa, Rayjacksonia phyllocephala, Sabatia arenicola, Salicornia bigelovii, Salicornia virginica, Scirpus americanus, Scirpus robustus, Sesuvium portulacastrum, Solidago sempervirens, Spartina alterniflora, Spartina bakeri, Spartina cynosuroides, Spartina patens, Spartina spartinae, Sporobolus virginicus, Suaeda linearis, Symphyotrichum tenuifolium

Data References:

PLT-GCET-0608 (companion study in Georgia salt marshes)

Project References:

Marsh plant diversity

Publications:

Kunza Vargas, A.E. and Pennings, S.C. 2005. Poster: Plant diversity of Texas and Georgia salt marshes. Ecological Society of America 2005 Meeting - Ecology at multiple scales, August 7-12, 2005, Montreal, Canada.

Kunza, A.E. 2006. Patterns of plant diversity in two salt marsh regions. M.S. Thesis. University of Houston, Houston, Texas. 70 pages.

Kunza, A.E. and Pennings, S.C. 2006. Poster: Patterns of plant diversity in two salt marsh regions. Long Term Ecological Research Network All-Scientists Meeting, September 20-24, 2006, Estes Park, Colorado.

Guo, H., Chamberlain, S.A., Elhaik, E., Jalli, I., Lynes, A.R., Marczak, L., Sabath, N., Vargas, A., Wieski, K., Zelig, E. and Pennings, S.C. 2015. Geographic Variation in Plant Community Structure of Salt Marshes: Species, Functional and Phylogenetic Perspectives. PLOS ONE. 10(5). (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0127781)

Downloads:

Data Table: PLT-GCET-0711 (Main data table for data set PLT-GCET-0711, 1568 records)

Access: Public (released 29-Nov-2007)

Metadata: Text (ESA FLED), XML (Ecological Metadata Language)

Data Formats: Spreadsheet (CSV) [109.22kb], Text File [96.47kb], MATLAB (GCE Toolbox) [653.55kb], MATLAB (Variables) [645.23kb], Text Report [146.53kb]

Column List:(hide)

Column	Name	Units	Type	Description
1	Location	none	string	Researcher-defined name of location surveyed
2	Date	yyyy-mm-dd	string	Date of survey
3	Longitude	degrees	floating-point	Geographic longitude of the survey location
4	Latitude	degrees	floating-point	Geographic latitude of survey location
5	Envir_Type	none	string	Environment type surveyed
6	Salinity	PSU	floating-point	Salinity of nearest body of water to survey location
7	Flag_Salinity	none	string	QA/QC flags for Salinity of nearest body of water to survey location (flagging criteria, where "x" is Salinity: x<0="I", x>37="Q")
8	Species_Code	none	string	Plant species code
9	Plant_Presence	none	integer	Observations of plant species presence in study plots during the survey (0 = species not present, 1 = species present)

Statistics:

Generate script code to retrieve data tables for analysis in: MATLAB, R, SAS, SPSS

Citation:

Kunza Vargas, Amy E. 2007. Plant richness survey of mainland and barrier island locations along the Texas Gulf Coast in April and May 2005. Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER Project, University of Georgia, Long Term Ecological Research Network. http://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/18e730221dd8a554a3a49bb2a6bfa364

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