The influence of sample plot size on evaluations with Ellenberg indicator values

Abstract

The effect of plot size was tested on heterogeneous and homogeneous data sets that were obtained by sampling grassland and forest vegetation on plots differing in size. Mean EIV for releves revealed no differences among data sets from various plot sizes or between homogeneous and heterogeneous data sets. This is probably due to a similar indicator value for species newly occurring in plots with increasing plot size. Using EIV is thus a robust method even for data sets associated with wide range of plot sizes.