Rapid estimation of plant biomass used as forage or cover by White-tailed Deer, Odocoileus virginianus, and Snowshoe Hare, Lepus americanus, in mixed and coniferous forests of southeastern Québec

Abstract

Estimation of vegetation biomass in forest ecosystems is time-consuming because of inherent high variability. We developed 10 linear regression models to predict standing dry biomass of most plant taxa potentially used as forage or cover by White-tailed Deer and Snowshoe Hare in forests of southeastern Québec. Vertical interception and lateral coverage, which served as explanatory variables in regressions, were measured along 2-m transects before clipping, drying and weighing vegetation. Plant species with similar morphology and size were pooled. Although we collected vegetation samples from two areas 400 km apart, we could combine data for regressions except for low herbs (< 30 cm). Models covered a wide range of biomass and fitted the data reasonably well when In-transformed, with R2 values varying between 0.61 and 0.85. Cross-validation confirmed model robustness.