Managers of natural landscapes need cost-efficient, accurate, and precise systems to inventory plant diversity. We investigated a nested-intensity sampling design to assess local and landscape-scale heterogeneity of plant species richness in aspen stands in southern Colorado, USA. The nested-intensity design used three vegetation sampling techniques: the Modified-Whittaker, a 1000-m2 multiple-scale plot (n 5 8); a 100-m2 multiple-scale Intensive plot (n 5 15); and a 100-m2 single-scale Extensive plot (n 5 28). The large Modified-Whittaker plot (1000 m2) recorded greater species richness per plot than the other two sampling techniques (P , 0.001), estimated cover of a greater number of species in 1-m2 subplots (P , 0.018), and captured [...]
