A Comparison of Cover Pole With Standard Vegetation Monitoring Methods

ABSTRACT The ability of resource managers to make informed decisions regarding wildlife habitat could be improved with the use of existing data sets and the use of cost-effective, standardized methods to simultaneously quantify vertical and horizontal cover. We characterized vegetation structure of 3 semiarid plant communities to compare cover pole measurements, standard measurements of vegetation cover, composition, height, and the proportion of the soil surface exposed by large intercanopy gaps. We propose that a more versatile and interpretable description of wildlife habitat can be generated using a line-point intercept method together with measurements of vegetation height and the proportion of the soil surface exposed by large intercanopy gaps.