Welcome to the Southern FIA Nonnative Invasive data tool. Items below refer to information about the data, its limitations, and provides an example of how it may be associated with other FIA data, For a quick view of the raw data itself, click on http://srsfia2.fs.fed.us/nonnative_invasive/southern_nnis.php to view occurrence records for forested subplots. As is, the data are accessible to quickly obtain information by county on the occurrence of taxa on SRSFIA's watch list. For the identification guidebook, see http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/gtr/gtr_srs062/
The database still is under construction, as more work is needed to permit those unfamiliar with FIA to obtain more detailed information, such as estimates of the area of forestland with infestations, severity of infestations, area of coverage, and distribution maps by plot. For those already familiar with other FIA data, exploratory research may be conducted by downloading the invasive species information and linking it with associated FIA data that resides on the FIA DataMart website http://www.ncrs2.fs.fed.us/FIADatamart/fiadatamart.aspx An example "how-to" is provided below.
A suggested citation for this web application is:
Ridley, Ted; Rudis, Victor A.; Beresford, Helen. Forest inventory nonnative invasive plant web-application, version 1.0. Knoxville, TN: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis Program. [Available only on the internet: http://srsfia2.fs.fed.us/nonnative_invasive/Southern_Nonnative_Invasives.htm Date accessed: Month-day-year ].
NOTE: An effort has been made to document discrepancies, but exploration may uncover other discrepancies not yet thought of. Please be mindful of the documentation, discrepancies-noted-to-date, and caveats documented therein. Please also let us know what you think. This database will improve with users who take the trouble to explore the data, conduct analyses, and communicate with us. Please route comments and suggestions through our customer service representatives. Also, if you have any questions please feel free to contact us. Thanks.
1) If you do not see nonnative invasive data for a given plot it does not mean that the plot was missed. When you join the plot data with the nonnative invasive data, you will see plots that do not have corresponding nonnative invasive data, and this is aceptable in that the species of concern were not present. Nonnative invasive data is not collected on non-forest plots. The percent of nonnative invasive cover for a given species on a subplot is based only on the percent of the subplot in a forested condition, which means prop_cover = unadj_prop_cover/(condition proportion forested), but no greater than 1.000. Other data manipulation is needed for mixed (more than one) forested conditions on a subplot.
2) Different Field collection manuals were used to collect the data on the ground. Please note that with these different manuals code definitions have changed. Code 4 is of special concern. Please take note:
In 1.x the codes are:
1: Trace < 01%
2: 01-10%
3: 11-50%
4: >50%
And in 2.0 the codes are:
1: Trace < 01%
2: 01-10%
3: 11-50%
4: 51-90%
5: 91-100%
PCT_COVERAGE_LITERAL(adj. for Manual ver.)is the value for the code referenced in the manual version used. Once again, code 4 is of special concern.
3) States have collected panels of data with varying start dates and varying panels. Please take a look at this webpage for a listing of survey history.
4) The data available for download from the FIADB/Mapmaker website has coordinates and ownership values "fuzzed and swapped" To better understand this issue, please see this website, and feel free to contact us for clarification.
5) The nonnative exotic data may not contain all the information needed to answer certain questions. Generally, no voucher specimens are collected. Often times more data needs to be married(joined) to the nonnative exotic data in order to draw conclusions, make maps, etc. The following instructions may help marry this data for further analysis. If you marry(join) the data differently and would like to share your methods, please let us know.
For instance: I want to find out what the corresponding STDAGE code is for the subplots in my query of Tennessee Cycle 4 for "Kudzu" code 3123.
A. Download the .csv files for states of interest from Mapmaker, in this instance it is the TN-04 data.
B. Run the SRS FIA Nonnative Invasives tool for states of interest. Using Internet Explorer, right click the Nonnative Subplot table generated. Save the table as a .csv file.
C. Import the plot table, tree table, nonnative invasive table etc into a DBMS such as MS Access
D. Join the data using the CN numbers. CN(plot table)=CONTROL_NUMBER(nonnative exotics)
E. Run analysis/queries
- Observations of 3071 English ivy (Hedera helix) were not recorded before National manual version 2.0.
- For surveys prior to January 2004, misidentification/confusion between the two groups of Ligustrum species (codes 2103 and 2104) likely occurred in some survey cycles, subcycles, counties, and States.
- In Arkansas, cycle 3 panel 3, underreporting of nonnative invasive species presence may have occurred, as observation frequencies were about 1/2 those of subsequent panels.
Continue to the Southern FIA Nonnative Invasive data tool
