Geostatistical Analysis of Plant Communities at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Kansas

Diversity of plant communities is an important component of tallgrass prairies. Diversity can be used as an indicator of overall prairie health. The goal of this project was the application of geostatistics for identifying heterogeneity at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve (TAPR). Geostatistics allow spatial and temporal patterns to be analyzed for the datasets. TAPR is the only unit of the National Park Service (NPS) dedicated to the tallgrass prairie ecosystem. The NPS was interested in obtaining a baseline for plant community diversity at TAPR. The data used for this baseline was diversity indexes derived from field data, and remotely sensed data derived for IKONOS imagery. A secondary objective for this study was to identify a relationship between the field and remotely sensed data. The time period for this study takes place between 2001 and 2005 with results from this study shows a slight decline in plant community diversity over this time period