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Searching for Indicator Species of High Floristic Quality Depressional Wetlands in the US Southern Plains

  • Applied Wetland Science
  • Published:
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Abstract

Floristic Quality Assessment requires compiling a full list of vascular plant species for the wetland. Practitioners may lack the time and taxonomic skills for full-community vegetation surveys, especially when wetlands are large and complex. In this paper we broadly ask whether floristic quality indicator species may exist for wetlands, specifically evaluating indicator species potential for high floristic quality depressional wetlands in the US southern plains. Candidate indicators were identified for a broader context (depressions across Oklahoma prairie ecoregions) and narrower context (depressions in the northern Central Great Plains of Oklahoma) and evaluated based on performance, validity, and robustness criteria. Nine individual species and two species pairs showed exclusivity and ubiquity for high floristic quality, with their value generally improving in the narrower context. However, the overall best indicator (Eleocharis compressa) frequently occurred (> 20 % rate) in lower quality validation sites, and all indicators were lacking in one or more criteria. Combining E. compressa with select other candidates (Ammannia coccinea, Juncus torreyi, Leersia oryzoides) may compensate for weaknesses of individual species but the combinations may rarely be found across the region, suggesting they may not be useful in practice or that high-quality conditions are in fact scarce. Overall, these results offer mixed support for relying on indicator species to rapidly identify or verify high floristic quality depressional wetlands in the US southern plains. We recommend similar studies with larger datasets in other regions and testing other quality levels (low, moderate) before broadly concluding whether floristic quality indicator species may exist for wetlands.

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Available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Josh Crane and Jana Green for assisting with vegetation surveys. The 2012–2015 data collection was supported by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wetland Program Development Grants awarded through Oklahoma State University; 2016 by the Oklahoma Conservation Commission and EPA National Wetland Condition Assessment; and 2017–2018 by the Department of Natural Sciences at Northeastern State University. We also thank an anonymous reviewer who offered many excellent ideas and suggestions to improve the manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. Tommi S. Fouts

    Present address: Muskogee County Health Department, Oklahoma State Department of Health, Muskogee, OK, 74401, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Illinois Natural History Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA

    Jason T. Bried & Suneeti K. Jog

  2. Department of Natural Sciences, Northeastern State University, 74464, Tahlequah, OK, USA

    Tommi S. Fouts

Authors
  1. Jason T. Bried
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  2. Tommi S. Fouts
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  3. Suneeti K. Jog
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Contributions

JTB and SKJ conceived the study idea. JTB designed the study. All authors collected the data. TSF and JTB performed the analysis. JTB wrote the manuscript with reading, input, and approval from TSF and SKJ.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jason T. Bried.

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To the best of our knowledge this study was conducted in compliance with all relevant ethical and legal standards, and all necessary permissions (to access field sites, to collect and use data) were obtained.

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Bried, J.T., Fouts, T.S. & Jog, S.K. Searching for Indicator Species of High Floristic Quality Depressional Wetlands in the US Southern Plains. Wetlands 41, 96 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01492-9

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