Spring into action with Plantlife: A comparison of meadow surveying and monitoring methods available at Plantlife

This talk covered 3 different ways you can monitor your meadow.

Host, Lauren, discussed how to understand how management is makes a difference for wild plant diversity. 

It focussed on the different methods Plantlife currently uses: Every Flower Counts, Rapid Grassland Assessment and NPMS+. 

Here are my notes on the presentation:

What is a meadow and meadow types

Poppies

Lucia Chmurova, Magnificent Meadows Cymru Manager, introduced the concept of meadows. Typically understood as either:

Native, largely perennial wildflower meadows, including grasses

or

Pictorial meadows of cornfield annuals, such as poppies, that are re-sown each year.

However, only the perennial type of meadow is considered as a meadow by ecologists.

Species-rich meadows are important as living space for wildlife, to store carbon (below ground), to increased flood resilience, for our wellbeing, and as an important space for farming. Overall, this makes meadows a valuable space for a variety of reasons.

Carbon storage for unimproved grass and scrub at 230 tonne per ha, is actually higher than woodland at 200tph.

Ragged Robin

Within succession, annual plants, such as nettles and poppies take over bare ground. Perennial
meadows are the next stage of succession before scrub, softwood trees, and finally hardwood trees take over.

To ensure a good plant species diversity, wildflower meadows need ongoing management to prevent succession - important as we have so few meadows.

Between April-July meadows should remain uncut to see what is present, before being cut.

Acid (less species rich, marshy/upland area), Neutral, Calcareous (most species rich grassland. Thin, free draining soil), and Improved (plain green fields, often due to modern technology, fertilisers and herbicides) are the four different types of grassland.

Meadow Monitoring

Why monitor a meadow?

• Species 
• Type of community of plants
• Whether management is working - is this increasing or decreasing species?
• Discovery of problem species
• Discover how rare or introduced species are managing
• Changes to the grassland over time

A survey would be a species list, done either once or intermittently.

Monitoring would include a regular survey, showing abundance of species, change over time, and habitat characteristics. It is important to stick with the same style of monitoring, so that the same method is used and comparisons can be made.

Very simply, we can look at species presence or absence. DAFOR - abundance. DOMIN is percentage cover.

There is the need to assess habitat characteristics, such as ratio of flower to grasses, extent of scrub, litter, etc, also extent of bare ground (and the reason why, such as grazing).

Sampling methods include using quadrats, linear plots, or transects.

Fixed squares or plots are often around 5x5m, with the survey repeated in the same spot each visit. 

Randomised or semi-randomised sampling can be 1x1m squares placed around a field, but the square are not fixed and can be changed each survey.

Indicator species can tell you whether the conditions are good or poor and are often divided into positive or negative indicators. Wild thyme and bird's foot trefoil are good indicators, whereas creeping thistle and common nettle are negative indicators as they tend to dominate (indicating too many nutrient, for example.)

Monitoring Projects

Every Flower Counts

Oliver stepped into discuss the monitoring method of Every Flower Counts.

This is a citizen science survey that takes place in May and July each year in gardens, parks, or other domesticated grasslands.

This survey provides engagement by providing a 'Nectar Score' based on species and flowers discovered by a semi-random square is placed and a count of flowers for each species.

National Plant Monitoring Scheme

A scheme launched in 2015 to give a national overview on trends on meadow habitat. This provides a lot of data on plant abundance providing data on what is happening with Britain's grasslands.

This uses a fixed 5x5m plot that is surveys twice each year, with much online support provided, with data feeding into UK-wide data and statistics.

NPMS+ is being developed for landowners to do this survey on their own land in the next couple of years.

Rapid Grassland Assessment

Used to monitor grassland condition, done of a regular basis (at least annually), using indicator species to inform site management. It is useful for detecting short-term changes in meadow creation or restoration.

Step 1: Create a recording sheet template specifically for your site

Step 2: Place quadrats at the site

Step 3: Record the data in the field

Step 4: analyse results.

More information can be downloaded.

Comparison of schemes

A fantastic overview from Plantlife

Watch the lecture for yourself for the full story: