By tweaking the way that an assessment tool is used, researchers at Penn State University have found that it can reveal wetland quality in a faster but just as accurate way, according to a release. The tool in question is the Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA), commonly used to judge the quality of a wetland, taking into account the health and abundance of its plant species.<\/p>\n
Though typical approaches using the FQA rely on a complete list of a wetland\u2019s plant species, Penn State scientists wanted to see if there was a quicker but still reliable way they could fill in that part of the assessment. So instead of a complete list of plants in a wetland, they tried just using a list of the dominant species within. <\/p>\n
This approach was applied to 87 of 200 wetlands that are monitored by Riparia, a research effort supported by the university, revealing that this rapid version is just as effective at predicting the quality of a wetland. The researchers later took the findings and used them in creating an online calculation tool that lets anyone monitor the quality of wetlands based on a list of existing flora in an area. <\/p>\n
Top image:\u00a0Wetlands are at risk of being degraded or overrun by invasive species. (Credit: Riparia \/ Penn State)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By tweaking the way that an assessment tool is used, researchers at Penn State University have found that it can reveal wetland quality in a faster but just as accurate way, according to a release. The tool in question is the Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA), commonly used to judge the quality of a wetland, taking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":24326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,7],"tags":[103,212,56],"class_list":["post-24329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-estuaries-wetlands","category-news","tag-news-2","tag-penn-state-university","tag-wetlands-estuaries"],"remote_post_permalink":false,"remote_post_featured_image":false,"yoast_head":"\n