Imputing plant community classifications for forest inventory plots

摘要

Native plant community (NPC) classifications typically require on-site visits and in-depth observations by trained ecologists. The goal is to identify unique floristic and environmental characteristics indicative of a particular plant community, ecosystem, or demographic condition. Such data are often desired to inform management decisions on sustainable timber and ecosystem services production over local to large landscapes. Yet, the time and funding needed to identify, assess, catalogue, and map these communities is often limited. Lacking these classifications, we rely on imprecise determinations of the pievarence of various NPCs. Further, extrapolating statewide NPC extent from previously imputed classifications for state managed stands is difficult without a representative sampling design including all ownerships. As a solution to the NPC sample coverage limitation, we describe an extension of a previously reported imputation model to provide the desired statewide classifications and corresponding estimates of the ecological landscape state indicator provided by NPC extent.