Floristic Quality Assessments

List of limitations of the floristic quality assessment method for evaluating the ecological value of a site through an analysis of its plant species composition.

See pages 6-7 for discussion of sampling timing on Mean C and FQA Index scores.

Provides information on the history of the floristic quality assessment tool, and the development and use of coefficients of conservatism.

Provides information on the history of the FAQAI, and the development and use of CCs

Description of using the floristic quality assessment tool to study native plant communities in Illinois.

Analysis and rating of plant communities in Ohio using the floristic quality assessment index method.

Evaluation of floristic quality assessment as a potentially an important tool for conservation efforts in the northern Great Plains of North America.

Applications of this system include the identification of remnant habitats of native floristic significance, comparisons between different sites, long-term monitoring of floristic quality, monitoring the progress of habitat restoration, and the use of National Wetland Categories to assist in identification of wetlands. The MDNR is using the same quality assessment system that Floyd Swink and Gerould Wilhelm used for the Chicago Region.

The Coastwide Reference Monitoring System (CRMS) program was established to assess the effectiveness of individual coastal restoration projects and the cumulative effects of multiple projects at regional and coastwide scales. The CRMS Vegetation Analytical Team has developed a Floristic Quality Index (FQI) for coastal Louisiana to determine the quality of a wetland based on its plant species composition and abundance.

Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA) is a robust, botanically based method for assessing the quality of ecological communities and natural areas. Integral to the method is that each native plant species in a state or region is assigned a Coefficient of Conservatism, or C value, based on its response to stressors. In the Northeast Region (including six New England states and New York), C values were completed at the state level in 2011, whereby every species in each state was assigned a C value based on statewide “average behavior.” But jurisdictional units are not optimal for addressing changes in species behavior. For this reason, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC) have supported the development of ecoregional C values, including in the Northeast.

An open-source tool that includes plant databases from across the United States and has been used to calculate thousands of assessments. The tool is free, but users must register with their email address.