for the planted bitter panicum community (Table 9). The sand dune areas, 

 which were devoid of vegetation, had no measurable biomass. 



b. Vegetational Map . The vegetational map of the study area is 

 presented in Figure 2. A summary of the approximate number of acres of 

 each community, the barren sand dune areas, and roadways is presented 

 in Table 13. The Duck Field Research Facility covers approximately 

 150 acres which includes 3 acres of roadways and 27 acres of barren 

 sand dunes. The low dune grass community had the largest area of any 

 community type, approximately 40 acres, and the planted American 

 beachgrass community was second with 30 acres. The remaining values 

 ranged from 14 acres for oceanside intershrub to about 1 acre for the 

 wetlands commionity. 



c. Community Ordination . The results of ordination techniques 

 are presented in Figures 3, 4, and 5. The three-dimensional aspects 

 of this model have been depicted by graphing two axes at a time. The 

 distances between individual communities are related to the relative 

 differences between them. It should be emphasized that ordination 

 serves merely as a tool, which when carefully used, can yield a variety 

 of information. By itself, however, it provides only an interesting 

 arrangement of points and serves little purpose. 



The distinctness of the foredune and wetland communities is borne 

 out by the X-Y and X-Z perspectives (Figs, 3 and 4), which indicate the 

 distinctness of the sound-side shrub and oceanside shrub communities. 

 The X-Z and X-Y axes suggest that the oceanside and intershrub community 

 is distinct, but it is closely allied with many stands on the X-Y aspect. 



The sound-side shrub community is distinct on all three axes, 

 although it shows some similarities to the large centrally located 

 group of communities on the X-Z axis. 



In contrast to the clearly distinct community types, six community 

 types (planted American beachgrass, sandgrass-buttonweed, low dune grass, 

 planted bitter panicum, sound-side disturbed, and spurge-sandgrass) 

 have strong similarities to each other. 



d. Permanent Quadrats . Figures 6 through 30 show most of the 

 permanent quadrats. Low dune grass quadrat 2 has not been diagramed 

 as it was vacant. The three permanent plots located in the oceanside 

 shrub community were omitted as they had 100 percent M. pensy'lvan-ioa 

 coverage. Only one plot was located in the wetlands community (Fig. 

 29), and spurge-sandgrass community (Fig. 30). The three permanent 

 quadrats which were located on barren dune sites have not been 

 represented as figures since they are featureless. Table 14 lists 

 separately the location of each quadrat's permanent survey marker. 

 The usefulness of these plots will be realized as their compositional 

 changes are mapped over the years. 



39 



