Transforming the Response in Experiments Based on Percentage Cover of Vegetation

Many ecological studies use popular variables such as percentage cover of the vegetation to assess the effects of different treatments or environmental management or conditions. Starting with sparse vegetation, the growth in percentage cover is likely to be sigmoidal, and, unless repetitive cover is measured, it will have an upper asymptote of 100%. If the initial cover values under different treatments or management regimes are not equal, then the different growth rates due to the unequal starting values will be confounded with the different treatments. ly of suitable growth curve models can be fitted to the data arising under different treatments, so that one or more of the interpretable fitted parameters of the model can be considered as "responses" to the different treatments. These responses can be analysed to compare the effects of different treatments or environmental conditions, using either parametric or non-parametric methods. The suggested approach is illustrated by application to a particular data set from the literature. The implications for the design of field studies and for the analysis of other vegetational variables are discussed.