Second day in the field was a success. Michaela, Sadie & I blew through 3 transects on Trail A and moved to Trail B where we did 6 more. (9 in total today!) We had quite a few invasive (Tallow & Chinaberry) in our Trail A transects and not as many on Trail B. Trail B was also not as difficult seeing also our first few transects were only 6 meters in length as opposed to 100m.
So for those of you reading our blog, we are probably using many terms that may seem foreign to our readers. I will attempt to explain what we are talking about. A transect is the line that that we run through the wetland for 100 meters. The tape we run through the forest is the “transect” tape.
For myself, being the data recorder, I have many duties. On my data sheet I am I’m charge of recording the transect stop, the natural & exotic overstory, the understory’s percent of ferns & blackberry, the amount of leaf & wood litter, and if there is or is not a fallen log on the quadrant. Now to explain all of these concepts. The transect stop is the length of the recording. For example, if the transect stop is at 4 meters, we are recording everything in between the last stop (2M) and 4 meters. Our quadrant for that stop is 1 M on each side of the quadrant. The overstory is the amount of cover over the quadrant we are observing; native percent is the amount of native vegetation that covers the area and exotic is the amount of invasive species that cover the space. The understory is self-explanatory in that we record the percent of ferns and blackberry we observe. The leaf and wood litter is just the amount of leaves and sticks/branches that cover the floor; this section is measured in centimeters. The final section I am in charge of is whether or not there is a fallen log, which is also self-explanatory because I literally circle yes or no.
The last section of the data entry that I complete is along with the help of Sadie and Michaela. The space calls for the identification of all plants in the quadrant we are focused on. This calls for the name of the species, the height of the vegetation and the DBH (Diameter Breast height). The DBH is determined only of the vegetation is larger than your breast height. If so, we measured the diameter of the steam/trunk. I hope these explanations were helpful!
