Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA) Calculator for Colorado User s Guide

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1 Floristic Quality Assessmet (FQA) Calculator for Colorado User s Guide Created by the Colorado atural Heritage Program Last Updated April 2012 The FQA Calculator was created by Michelle Fik ad Joaa Lemly of the Colorado atural Heritage Program. Fudig was provided by U.S. Evirometal Protectio Agecy Regio 8 Itroductio Floristic Quality Assessmet (FQA) is based o the cocept of species coservatism (Wilhelm & Ladd 1988; Swik & Wilhelm 1994; Wilhelm & Masters1996). The core of the FQA method is the use of coefficiets of coservatism (C-values), which are assiged to all ative species i a flora. C-values rage from 0 to 10 ad represet a estimated probability that a plat is likely to occur i a ladscape relatively ualtered from pre-europea settlemet coditios (Table 1). High C-values are assiged to species which are obligate to high-quality atural areas ad caot tolerate habitat degradatio, while low C-values are assiged to species with a wide tolerace to huma disturbace. Geerally, C-values of 0 are reserved for o-ative species. Table 1. C-values ad their iterpretatio. C-Values Iterpretatio 0 o-ative species. Very prevalet i ew groud or o-atural areas. 1-3 Commoly foud i o-atural areas. 4-6 Equally foud i atural ad o-atural areas. 7-9 Obligate to atural areas but ca sustai some habitat degradatio. 10 Obligate to high quality atural areas (relatively ualtered from pre-europea settlemet). The proportio of coservative plats i a plat commuity provides a powerful ad relatively easy assessmet of the itegrity of both biotic ad abiotic processes ad is idicative of the ecological itegrity of a site. The most basic FQA idex is a simple average of C-values for a give site, geerally called the Mea C, though more complex idices ca be calculated. C-values for Colorado species were assiged by a pael of botaical experts, as described i Rocchio (2007). This User s Maual describes a easy-to-use database for calculatig Colorado FQA idices.

Gettig Started The FQA Calculator is a Microsoft Access database ad has bee tested uder Access versios 2007 ad 2010.

2 Gettig Started The FQA Calculator is a Microsoft Access database ad has bee tested uder Access versios 2007 ad You must have Microsoft Access 2007 or later istalled o your computer i order to use it. Depedig o the computer security protocols i place where you work, you may eed to place the database file i a "trusted" locatio ad/or go through steps to ublock/eable cotet before you ca use it. For further help, see your orgaizatio's computer security/it perso. If you get a message like this, click "Optios " ad the "eable cotet." You must eable cotet before you ca use the database. Whe you ope the FQA Calculator, the first thig you will see is the Mai Meu. Complete the steps i the order i which they are preseted o the Mai Meu (sectios for each step follow). First you will import your data table ito the database. The you eed to check to make sure that the species ames used i your table match those used by the calculator (Weber ad Wittma 2001). If they do ot match, you the eed to crosswalk your species ames. Crosswalks ca be saved ad used repeatedly with multiple datasets. After that, your data will the be ready ad FQA values ca be calculated.

Import Data Table Click o the "Import data table" butto o the Mai Meu. Your vegetatio plot data must be i a digital file with the followig fields: Field Descriptio Plot Plot ame or code.

3 Import Data Table Click o the "Import data table" butto o the Mai Meu. Your vegetatio plot data must be i a digital file with the followig fields: Field Descriptio Plot Plot ame or code. The FQA scores are calculated by Plot. Species Scietific ame of species, ideally followig Weber ad Wittma (2001) Cover Percet cover of this species i this plot, values betwee IMPORTAT The field ames of your table must match the above. Ay other fields i your table will be igored. Blaks i the Plot ad Species fields will cause errors. Blaks i Cover will ot cause errors, but will affect the calculatios. The Cover value must be umeric (o o-umeric characters, like percet sigs) ad must be betwee 0 ad 100, iclusive (o-iteger values, like 10.8 or 0.5, are fie). Ay file type recogized by MS Access ca be imported, see the list of file types i the screeshot below. You ca import more tha oe data table, but you will eed to do them oe at a time, ad the FQA calculatios are doe o oe table at a time. Oce you select a file type to import, the Access Import Wizard for that type will ru. Follow the prompts o the scree. IMPORTAT Choose the default optio to "Import the source data ito a ew table i the curret database." Do ot apped the records to a existig table or lik to the data.

Because you are creatig a ew table, you ca ame it whatever you wat. If you are plaig o importig multiple tables ito the same copy of the FQA Calculator, be sure to use descriptive ames for each table.

4 Because you are creatig a ew table, you ca ame it whatever you wat. If you are plaig o importig multiple tables ito the same copy of the FQA Calculator, be sure to use descriptive ames for each table. However, try to avoid uusual characters (puctuatio or symbols) i the ame. The last scree of the Access Import Wizard will ask you if you wat to save the import steps. Uless you pla o repeatedly re-importig the same table (presumably with edits), just click the Close butto ad do ot bother savig the steps.

5 Check Species ames Oce you have completed importig a data table, you will be back at the Mai Meu. Click the "Check species ames" butto to see if your species ames match the expected omeclature of Weber ad Wittma (2001). You will be preseted with a list of all data tables i the database. First select whether you wat to crosswalk your species ames usig Authorities as part of the ame or ot. The click the ame of the table to use.

You will see a list of species ames from your table that do ot match ay species ame i the FQA Calculator (if this scree is blak, the all ames match ad you do't eed to do aythig more, click "Cacel" to

6 You will see a list of species ames from your table that do ot match ay species ame i the FQA Calculator (if this scree is blak, the all ames match ad you do't eed to do aythig more, click "Cacel" to retur to the Mai Meu). A ame may ot match because it has a typo (or slightly differet format such as "spp" versus "spp." to desigate subspecies), because it is a syoym, or because it does't exist i the FQA Calculator. Use the drop-dow list o the right had colum to fid the matchig Weber ad Wittma ame. You ca either scroll dow the list or start typig to jump dow the list. If there is o matchig/syoym ame i the drop-dow list, that species caot be used i the calculatios. Click the "o Match" checkbox to tell the calculator to skip that species. If you have a lot of etries that have o match, you ca click the "Mark All as o Match" butto to check all records as "o Match" at oce to save time. You ca the go through ad ucheck ay that do actually have a match. IMPORTAT it does't matter if you assig a crosswalk ame if the record is also checked as "o Match", all records marked as "o Match" will be igored i the calculatios. All of the species ames listed o the left must either be assiged a crosswalk species ame or be marked as "o Match" before you ca cotiue. Oce you have completed the crosswalk, you ca save it to use i the future if you wish. IMPORTAT if you wat to save the crosswalk, click the "Save" butto before clickig the "Apply" butto. Save the crosswalk with a descriptive ame that distiguishes it from your data table. Avoid uusual characters (puctuatio or symbols) i the ame Oce you are fiished with the crosswalk, ad have saved it if you wat to, click the "Apply" butto to apply the crosswalk to your data table ad retur to the Mai Meu. If you have a saved crosswalk i this copy of the FQA Calculator ad wat to use it o aother data table, click the "Load" butto. You will be asked to choose from a list of all tables that you have so far created i this database (icludig your data table, which is why descriptive ames are helpful). Click o the saved crosswalk to load it. If the species i the saved crosswalk do ot exactly match what's i your data table, the loaded crosswalk will be icomplete. Apply it ad the ru "Check species ames" agai to see if ay species ames were missed.

7 Calculate FQA Values Oce you have completed checkig the species ames, ad have applied your crosswalk, you will be back at the Mai Meu. Click o the "Calculate FQA values" butto to aalyze your prepared data. If you have bee doig this i the sequece described, the FQA Calculator will automatically use the data table you just imported ad/or applied a crosswalk to. If you had't just doe these other tasks, you will see a list of tables to select. Click o the table ame that you wat to ru the calculatios o. There are 17 colums i this table, you ca either resize the widow (if you scree resolutio is high eough), or scroll to the right to see all the values. You ca also click the "Export to Excel" butto to make a Excel spreadsheet of these data. If values are blak, that meas there was isufficiet data for that plot to complete the calculatio.

8 Termiology, descriptio ad calculatio of FQA idices. = cout of ative species, a = cout of all species, e = cout of o-ative species, C i = idex of coservatism for the i th species, x i = percet cover for the i th species. Idices Descriptio Calculatio Species richess umber of plat species observed a ative species richess o-ative species richess Percet oative species umber of ative plat species observed umber of o-ative plats umber of ative plats divided by the umber of all plats multiplied by 100 e ( ) (100) a Mea C Mea C at Cover-weighted Mea C Cover-weighted Mea C at FQI Average C-value of all plats Average C-value of oly the ative plats Sum of each species C-value multiplied by its cover values, the divided by the sum of cover values for all species Sum of each ative species C-value multiplied by its cover values, the divided by the sum of cover values for ative species Mea C of all plats multiplied by the square-root of umber of all plats Ci i =1 Ci i =1 xic i= 1 xi Ci i = 1 i=1 Ci i a xi i= 1 xi i = 1 a a FQI at Mea C of ative plats multiplied by the squareroot of umber of ative plats i =1 C i Cover-weighted FQI Cover-weighted Mea C for all species multiplied by the square-root of all species xc i i i= 1 i= 1 xi a Cover-weighted FQI at Cover-weighted Mea C for ative plats multiplied by the square-root of ative plats x C x i i i i = 1 i = 1 Adjusted FQI Adjusted coverweighted FQI Ci = 10 Mea C of ative plats divided by 10 multiplied by square-root of ative plats divided by the squareroot of umber of all plats multiplied by 100 i 1 ( 100) Cover-weighted Mea C for ative plats divided by 10 multiplied by square-root of ative plats divided by the square-root of umber of all plats multiplied by 100 xi Ci i = 1 10 i = 1 xi a a (100)

9 Database Maiteace, Tips, ad Troubleshootig If you would like to get to the tables, queries, or forms behid the FQA Calculator, press F11 to ope the Access avigatio Pae. This is the oly way to delete a table if you wat to do that. IMPORTAT Do ot delete the table "tfqaspecieslist_lu"! The FQA Calculator will o loger fuctio if this table is ot there. Ay other tables i the database are user added ad may be safely deleted. Likewise, if you chage or delete ay query, form, or code, the FQA Calculator will likely ot work correctly aymore. If you applied a crosswalk to your imported data table, the species ames were over-writte where ecessary, but the origial ames are still i the table, i a field called "Origial_ames". You ca copy/export your crosswalk table(s) ad data table(s) to ay other database or as a stad-aloe table (Excel, delimited ASCII, etc.). Microsoft Access is ot very good about keepig databases clea. The more you use a copy of the FQA Calculator, the larger the file will get. You may wat to occasioally use the "Compact ad Repair Database" tool to keep the file size dow. Please see the MS Access help for more iformatio. Refereces Rocchio, J. (2009) Floristic quality assessmet idices for Colorado plat commuities. Colorado atural Heritage Program, Colorado State Uiversity, Fort Collis, Colorado. Swik F. ad G. Wilhelm. (1994) Plats of the Chicago Regio. 4th Editio. Morto Arboretum, Lisle, IL. Wilhelm, G. ad D. Ladd. (1988) atural area assessmet i the Chicago regio. Pp i R.E. McCabe, editor, Trasactios of the 53rd orth America Wildlife ad atural Resources Coferece. Wildlife Maagemet Istitute, Washigto D.C. Wilhelm, G. ad L. Masters. (1996) Floristic Quality Assessmet i the Chicago Regio. The Morto Arboretum, Lisle, IL.

Descriptive Statistics Summary Lists

Chapter 209 Descriptive Statistics Summary Lists Itroductio This procedure is used to summarize cotiuous data. Large volumes of such data may be easily summarized i statistical lists of meas, couts, stadard