An evaluation of three quick methods commonly used to assess sward height in ecology

By K. Stewart, N. Bourn, Jeremy A. Thomas. 2001

270 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Ecology, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/73732fcf2b5446c0a5719a3bbbed5570fb9aad74

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In Ecology

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

Citations in the corpus

Grazing management of calcareous grasslands and its implications for the conservation of beetle communities (2005, methodology): “On four occasions during the summer (May, June, July and September) vegetation structural complexity was assessed by taking 30 drop disk measurements (Stewart et al., 2001) which were averaged over the whole season for each plot.”
RESTORATION OF BUTTERFLY AND MOTH COMMUNITIES IN SEMI-NATURAL GRASSLANDS BY CATTLE GRAZING (2004, methodology): “The area was searched through for Lepidoptera in a serpentine-like manner, so that December 2004 1659RESTORATION OF SEMI-NATURAL GRASSLANDS most of the area was covered once during each visit (Douwes 1976, Balmer and Erhardt 2000).”
Different responses of plants and herbivore insects to a gradient of vegetation height: an indicator of the vertebrate grazing intensity and successional age (2006, methodology): “Mean vegetation height of a site was calculated based on direct measurements (Stewart et al. 2001) from 15 systematically placed 1 m plots at the end of the grazing season in mid-September.”
Elephant-induced structural changes in the vegetation and habitat selection by large herbivores in an African savanna (2011, methodology): “…directly measured the grass height at five points (each corner and the centre of the quadrat) by placing a hand lightly on the vegetation at the level below which about 80% of the vegetation is estimated by eye to be growing (Stewart et al., 2001), and we then calculated the average grass height.”
Agricultural management, vegetation traits and landscape drive orthopteran and butterfly diversity in a grassland–forest mosaic: a multi‐scale approach (2009, methodology): “We measured vegetation height (VEG) using a drop-disk method (Stewart et al., 2001), and the percentage of bare ground cover was visually estimated (GAP).”
Management to enhance pollen and nectar resources for bumblebees and butterflies within intensively farmed landscapes (2011, methodology): “On each visit the height of the vegetation in each sub-treatment was recorded from four drop disk measurements (diameter 300 mm, weight 200 g) (Stewart et al. 2001).”
Impact of farm size and topography on plant and insect diversity of managed grasslands in the Alps (2009, methodology): “For each meadow, we also quantified vegetation height using a drop-disc method (Stewart et al., 2001).”