We present a rapid, cost-efficient methodology to link plant diversity surveys from plots to landscapes using: (1) unbiased site selection based on remotely sensed information; (2) multi-scale field techniques to assess plant diversity; (3)mathematical models (species-area curves) to estimate the number of species in larger areas corrected for within-type heterogeneity; and (4) mathematical techniques to estimate total species richness and patterns of plant diversity in a landscape. We demonstrate the methodology in a 754 ha study area in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, U.S.A.,using four 0.025 ha and twenty-one 0.1 ha multi-scale vegetation plots. We recorded 330 plant species (~1/3 the number of plants recorded in the 1074 [...]
