k Negative growth rates reflect a decreasing population size. Birth rates and death rates were 

 calculated as the number of new plants or missing plants in year n divided by the total 

 number of plants in year n-1 and multiplied by 100 to give a percentage. 



Many of the plants at Vipond Park were still flowering when we read the transects in 

 1989, thus we read these transects later in subsequent years. 



In 1990 the No. 10 quadrat of the Vipond Park East transect was so crowded that 

 interpretation became impossible. In 1991 quadrat No. 8 also became too crowded for 

 interpretation. The west half of quadrat 10 was deleted from analysis in 1990, and the west 

 half of quadrat 8 was deleted in 1991. Consequently, summary statistics reported herein will 

 I not match exactly those from previous reports (Lesica and Shelly 1989, 1991b). 



In 1991 I estimated canopy cover of all vascular plants as well as rock, bare soil and 

 total vegetation in each quadrat. I estimated cover to the nearest 5% with two additional 

 classes, P=l-3% and T=0-1%, at the lower end of the scale. 



Results and Discussion 



The transects at Lime Gulch are in vegetation dominated by the grasses, Agropyron 

 spicatum . Stipa comata and Oryzopsis hymenoides : total vegetation cover was ca. 40% (Table 

 1). Vegetation at the Vipond Park monitoring site was dominated by cushion-forming forbs 



