A monitoring program of forest herbs was initiated at Mammoth Cave National Park (MCNP). The objectives of this project were to produce a quantitative description of the current forest herb communities which can be used as a baseline for monitoring future change as well as a foundation for making informed management decisions. Herbaceous vegetation in previously established permanent forest monitoring plots was characterized during the summers of 1993-94. In the future, these baseline data can be used to detect changes in forest herb communities that might result from natural succession, management decisions and/or environmental changes. The landuse history for these plots was evaluated as a factor affecting the present diversity, richness and cover of the forest herbs at Mammoth Cave National Park. Prior to the establishment of MCNP, landuse consisted of a mosaic of agriculture, logging, and grazing. The park provides unique natural experiment to study the recovery of vegetation following a variety of human influenced disturbances.Thirty-two permanent plots were used to collect species presence and cover in early spring and mid-summer. Five forest herb communities were classified for spring and summer. All plots for the spring and summer community classification were the same except for two. Environmental variables, overstory vegetation, and previous landuse are identified as variables that have significant associations with herbaceous composition. Herbaceous cover, richness, and diversity were higher in areas that were forested before park establishment. The results of this study support the contention that human induced disturbances have more detrimental effect on forest herbs compared to overstory tree species. / Department of Biology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/185841 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Jones, Bobette Elaine |
| Contributors | Ball State University. Dept. of Biology., Badger, Kemuel S. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | 1 v. (various pagings) : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us-ky |
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