Overview

This web page evaluates the effect of reducing sampling effort for vegetation transects at all long-term monitoring sites for the Critical Coastal Habitat Assessment in Tampa Bay. Currently, sampling is conducted every half meter and the power analysis evaluates the effect of reduced effort up to sampling every ten meters, or a 95% reduction from the current effort. Scenarios evaluating more than 50% (1 meter sampling) or 66% (1.5 meter sampling) reduction in effort are unrealistic, but still useful to understand the effects on quantitative measures of habitat. These measures include:

1. Total species richness at a site
2. Total species richness at a site by vegetation zone
3. Species frequency occurrence at a site
4. Vegetation zone distances by site
5. Elevation at which 95% of key species occur (e.g., mangroves)

See the results tab for an assessment of the measures at reduced sampling effort. The relative reduction in effort associated with each half-meter increase along a transect is shown below.