Koontz, J., D.G. Huggins, C.C. Freeman, D.S. Baker - Central Plains ...

Floristic Quality Assessments
Floristic Quality Assessments were conducted for all 42 sites visited during the 2008 and 2009
seasons; mean and median values of plant community metrics and final Floristic Quality Indices
(FQI) are reported in Table 2. Only mean values and variance in mean conservatism were found
to be significantly different between sample populations of the Western Corn Belt Plains (n = 21)
and Central Irregular Plains (n = 16) ecoregions based on ANOVA evaluation and Tukey-
Kramer multiple comparison tests. The mean value for the Interior River Valleys and Hills
sample population (n = 5) fell between the other two ecoregion sample populations, with mean
value of mean conservatism of native plant species for the Central Irregular Plains, Interior River
Valleys and Hills, and Western Corn Belt Plains regions being 4.58, 4.08, and 3.64, respectively.
Mean conservatism for all plant species mean ecoregion values were slightly lower than that of
native plant species but maintained the same hierarchy (Table 2, Figure 3).
Table 2. Descriptive statistics for Florist Quality Assessment metrics of the random population
of wetlands in the floodplain of the Missouri River.
Metric Count Mean STDDEV Median Min Max
FQI All 42 17.18 4.40 16.57 9.43 26.11
FQI Natives 42 18.17 4.31 17.69 11.09 27.14
Richness All 42 27.12 15.14 25.00 5.00 66.00
Richness Native 42 23.76 12.99 22.00 5.00 55.00
Percent Adventive 42 11.20 8.13 10.00 0.00 30.43
Mean Conservatism All 42 3.64 1.07 3.63 1.70 6.00
Mean Conservatism Natives 42 4.05 0.97 4.10 2.16 6.00
Mean Conservatism Mean Values
5.0
4.8
4.6
4.4
4.2
4.0
3.8
3.6
3.4
3.2
3.0
Central
Irregular
Interior
River
Ecoregion
Figure 3. Error bar chart of ecoregional means of mean conservatism values for plant richness of
all and native species.
15 of 84
Western
Corn Belt