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Floristic Quality Assessment

Indiana FQA

2004 Dr. Paul Rothrock led Midwestern botanists in the production of a plant database enumerating the quality of each plant species native or naturalized in Indiana. Floristic quality assessment allows rapid ranking or monitoring of natural habitat for conservation and ecological restoration.

FQA report  - Rothrock, P.E. Floristic Quality Assessment in Indiana: The Concept, Use, and Development of Coefficients of Conservatism. Report for EPA Wetland Program Development Grant CD975586-01.

Plant database

2005 - Present Phase Two is validation of FQA in Indiana natural areas, prairie restorations and wetland mitigations. This project has involved graduate students Janna McIndoe (prairie), Alicia Bever '05 (wetland) and Ann Ebert O'Neill '06 (prairie). In a related project, Michelle Reichert '07 applied FQA to an oldfield chronosequence.

Publications
Reprints available upon request: plrothroc@taylor.edu

2005 Rothrock, P.E. and M.A. Homoya. "An Evaluation of Indiana's Floristic Quality Assessment." Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science 114: 9-18.

2008 McIndoe, J.M., P.E. Rothrock, R.T. Reber, D.G. Ruch. "Monitoring Tallgrass Prairie Restoration Performance Using Floristic Quality Assessment." Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science 117: in press.