Data Associated with plot selection & analysis for volunteer-based monitoring of The Morton Arboretum's East Woods
Christy Rollinson, Forest Ecologist ([email protected]) Meghan Midgley, Soil Ecologist ([email protected]) Kurt Driesilker, Head of Natural Resources and Collections Horticulture ([email protected]) Spencer Campbell, Collections Volunteers Program Coordinator ([email protected])
Building off of the two past surveys (2007, 2018) performed by IES as part of a (Bell Labs??) grant at the IMLS plots scattered throughout the East Woods. The two surveys provided detailed data across the East Woods, but the time period in between has made it hard to detect management-linked patterns of change. In regular discussions in 2021 and 2022, a team of Arboretum Natural Resources staff (Driesilker, Campbell) and scientists (Rollinson, Midgley) agreed to shift to a rotating monitoring scheme loosely based off of the US Forest Service Forest Inventory Analysis (FIA) plan wherein a different set of plots are monitored each year so that every plot is revisited every 5 or so years. The plots to be monitored each year will be selected using a stratified random sampling to ensure that we will receive data from all major management units each year.