1001 W CASINO RD BASE FILE 2018-01-01 MF Import

. i 16 in theae calculations. Plants that wnrn not idantiliabla to species and that had a ranqe in WIS ratings were assiqned the everaqe for the ranqe of WIS ratings. An example oP a WMI calculation is provided below. Eseentially, a wMI assiqns a WIS to the community by wniqhtinq each apecies' WI3 by ita relative cover. The WMI provides an objective parameter useful in desiqnatinq a plant community as watland or upland. Fiqure A.1 shows n braakdown of the WMI scale. Idanlly, the "bra�kpoint" batween wetland and upland vagetation ia a WMI of 3.0 (i.e. , FAC) , with wetland bainq less than 3.0 end upland ba!nq qreater than 3.0. However, a WMI closa to 3.0 impliae a qreat deal of uncertainty in makinq a watland detarminetion. Whan the WMI is neer 3.0, vegetation may not be claarly indicative of either wetland or upland. However, as tha WMI of a plant community or plot approaches the extremns of the scale (i.e. , 1 ur 5) , the probability of the vegetation beinq indicative of either wetland or upland increasas. An inve6tiqation of tha suitability of this methodoloqy for a wide variety of plant communities in difPerent portions of the U.S. was carried out by Wentworth and Jchnson (1966) and should be referred to for more informatlon. Usinq both tha percentaga of the dominant apacias that arn FAC or wetter and a WMI providea en objective method f�r datermininq whather the veqetation of a community is adapted to wetland or non-wetland conditions. However, both of these indicea, or quidelines, are only ae qood as the classlfication syatem on which they are based. Inaccuracies of the WIS assignments will be reflected in the indicas. In casee where inconsistancy occure batwaen a epecies� WIS and its ecoloqical niche, based on field obaervation and apparent soil and hydroloqical conditions, veqetation indices may need to be evaluated more critically. All the plant communities on tha property were further classified according to the predominant vegetative growth form, and in some cases, substrate material, floodinq reqime, and;or landuse. Wetland communities were clasdified according to a eystem developed by Cowardin et al. (1979) , while upland communities wera clasaified accordinq to the � system described by Anderson et al . (1976) .