CN-370000-PL513-T208.pdf

TOTAL TASK ASSIGNMENT VALUE:

Org Code EO Object Code Fund Category Year Grant # Module/OCA Project # Amount

FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION

Date

CONTRACTOR

Contract Manager

Contractual Authority

Date

Contract Manager

APPROVED:

Task Manager

Budget Representative

Contractual Authority

TASK ASSIGNMENT NOTIFICATION FORM

DEP CONTRACT NO. PL513

FEE SCHEDULE FIXED PRICE TOTAL TASK ASSIGNMENT VALUE

Task Assignment Number: _______________________________________ Date: _____________________

Contractor: ___________________________________________________________________________________

Contractor Contract Manager: __________________ __ Phone Number:

DEP Contract Manager: ______________________________________ Phone Number: __________________

Task Description (Use additional sheets if necessary): _________________________________________________

Final Deliverables and Due Dates: _________________________________________ ______________________

Performance Measures: ______________ ________________________________________________

Financial Consequences: _______ _______________________________________________________________

Term of Task Assignment: _ _____________________________________________________________________

TASK ASSIGNMENT TYPE AND NOT TO EXCEED AMOUNTS:

Date

Date

Date

Date

208 12/01/2023

Florida State University/ Florida Natural Areas Inventory

Frank Price 850-224-8207

Deborah Burr / Task Manager - Rebecca Armstrong 850-245-2773

FNAI RPM Survey and Vegetation Monitoring

See attached Details for 208

See attached Details for 208

See attached Details for 208

12/7/2023 through 6/30/2025

$ 278,806.00

37500500000 PF 139900 408001 080039 24 NA U1650 80110 $ 278,806.00

12/04/2023

12/04/2023

12/04/2023

Digitally signed by Frank Price Date: 2023.12.01 12:43:51 -05'00'

Rose Driber for Stacey Patterson/VPR

Digitally signed by Rose Driber for Stacey Patterson/VPR Date: 2023.12.04 10:40:55 -05'00'

Deborah Burr Digitally signed by Deborah Burr Date: 2023.12.05 10:47:07 -05'00'

Rebecca Armstrong

Digitally signed by Rebecca Armstrong Date: 2023.12.04 15:58:16 -05'00'

Amy Horton Digitally signed by Amy Horton Date: 2023.12.04 16:42:33 -05'00'

Callie DeHaven Digitally signed by Callie DeHaven Date: 2023.12.05 10:49:36 -05'00'

DDEP PL513-Task Assignment 208 Scope of Work

FL Natural Areas Inventory

Summary

This Scope of Work describes five separate tasks to be completed by the Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI) for the Florida Park Service Bureau of Natural and Cultural Resources (BNCR) during FY2024 to support land management activities in Florida State Parks.

Task 1: Random Point Meander (RPM) invasive plant survey methodology training

FNAI will train BNCR Tallahassee staff in the Random Point Meander invasive plant survey methods including related applications and data processing tools.

1.1. Office training

Brief overview of survey project history (e.g., literature search and potential methodology identification, field trials of different methodologies, desktop review of this new methodology).

Review of analysis process, results, and experiences from using the methodology from Spring 2022 surveys Demonstrations of how to create survey points, setting up survey workday logistics, and field data analysis

1.2. Field training

Calibration on estimating ocular cover classes Demonstration/hands-on practice with performing RPM surveys using Field Maps app and processing the data with appropriate software.

Task 2: Conduct RPM invasive plant surveys in selected parks

The intent of this sampling effort is to develop an estimate of the percentage of land acreage within each sampled park or management zone covered by all invasive plant species. The uncertainty around this estimate is directly related to sampling intensity, both of the acres sampled within each management zone and the number of management zones sampled per park. Assessing conditions at the District level will require incorporation of DRP collected data.

Invasive plants are not randomly distributed across the landscape so, to minimize sampling variance, sampling would be stratified by natural community, management zone size, level of disturbance and possibly other factors. However, the sampling intensity needed to develop reliable cover estimates within this number of strata is beyond the scope of the current effort so the most accurate estimate possible was developed with the time available.

This sampling effort will not be sufficient to find all areas in need of invasive plant management, or to estimate cover for entire parks.

2.1. Sampling design and site selection – FNAI will meet with DRP/BNCR staff to plan an appropriate invasive sampling strategy for the year. This will consist of a 2-day meeting for two FNAI staff.

2.2. Invasive plant sampling - Sampling will be conducted using only the transect between random points approach (aka Random Point Meander/ Randomized Meandering Transects) developed by FNAI in 2021 (requests for surveys using other methods may require a change order). These surveys will be conducted using a fee schedule approach based on the total acreage of the management zone to be sampled. FNAI’s cost per acre can accommodate surveys in a range of conditions but if a majority of surveys fall within areas that are extremely difficult to traverse (dense vegetation, standing water, deep mud), additional funding or a truncation of the planned survey may be necessary. FNAI will discuss any such complication with BNCR before proceeding.

FNAI rate for FY24 Randomized Meandering Transect invasive plant surveys with 1 random point per 7.5 acres will be: $4.80/acre of Management Zone to be sampled with a minimum cost of $2,640 (550ac equivalent) per park. Parks within a 30 min drive time can be grouped to reach the minimum project size.

This estimate allows coverage of approximately 10% of the acreage of each management zone.

Increasing coverage will increase the effort and resulting cost per acre

Surveys will be conducted as follows:

Points will be randomly generated within the Management Zone (MZ) to be surveyed, with the number of points based on the acreage of the zone (one point per 7.5ac). If the management zone is smaller than 15 acres, a minimum of two points will be generated. All random points will be separated by at least 100m (or possibly a smaller distance for smaller management zones).

Once points for the management zone are generated, a route visiting each of the points, will be established. This route will be created based on the preferences of the surveyor; the path will be either the route that connects each point to its nearest neighbor, or a loop for convenience so that the survey begins and ends relatively close to an access point. Surveys will be conducted by walking a straight line from one point to the next until all points in the zone are visited. If habitat conditions are not traversable in certain areas, the path can deviate to allow for efficient surveying. If specific points are inaccessible due to high water or other conditions, surveyors will assess the area as close to the point as possible and then continue to the next point.

While walking between points, surveyors will collect data on invasive plants seen within 10m on either side of the survey path. Data collection will begin at the first point selected and end at the final point to ensure that data are not biased towards areas that are convenient to access. Data will be collected using Trimble GPS dataloggers with the ArcGIS Field Maps application and will include the data field specified to be collected in Appendix A.

The length of the total survey path (based on the surveyor’s GPS track) multiplied by the width of the survey transect (20m) will yield the total area sampled, which varies from survey to survey but generally will encompass about 10% of the total MZ acreage. Sampled infested acres will be divided by total area sampled to estimate total percent cover of invasive plants in each

MZ.

2.3. FNAI will analyze all Random Point Meander data collected by our staff to provide cover estimates for each park sampled and also incorporate any additional RPM data collected by DRP staff into an analysis of District and State level data. FNAI will provide a year-end report that includes cover estimates with suitable measures of uncertainty and associated figures. All R code and Excel workbooks used will be cleaned, annotated, and provided to DRP for future use.

TTask 3: Post-hurricane Michael restoration/recovery monitoring

After Hurricane Michael impacted the Florida Panhandle in October of 2018, FNAI conducted three years of assessment and monitoring to provide information to inform management of Florida State Parks in the impacted region. This work follows up the initial work to begin providing a long-term perspective on park recovery from this major storm. The results can be used to inform recovery from similar storms in the future.

This work follows the monitoring plan that FNAI developed for DRP in 2021:

FNAI_FDEP_HurricaneMichael_MonitoringPlan2021.pdf

FNAI will complete 4 tasks:

3.1. Monitor the succession of post hurricane natural communities within four state parks, describe changes at the park and community level, and attempt to assess the influence of differing post-hurricane recovery treatments through continued data collection in 69 of the original 119 inland natural community plots established by FNAI in 2019.

3.2. Monitor specific changes in the structure and composition of groundcover vegetation in upland pine communities at Falling Waters SP, Three Rivers SP, Florida Caverns SP, and Torreya SP in 30 groundcover plots FNAI established in 2020.

3.3. Compare community structure, composition, and quality (using a Floristic Quality Index method (Zomlefer et al. 2013)) to reference example communities across the panhandle to assess recovery.

3.4. Monitor populations of rare plant species impacted by Hurricane Michael and/or subsequent recovery efforts.

Fixed rare plant monitoring plots should be established in consultation with park staff to target species of management concern and inform population recovery. Potential target species include, but are not limited to, May apple (Podophyllum peltatum) at Florida Caverns SP, poppy mallow (Callirhoe papaver) at Three Rivers SP, and or narrow-leaved trillium (Trillium lancifolium) at Torreya SP. Within plots, repeatable, quantitative measurements of species abundance should be collected following a defined, species appropriate protocol.

TTask 4: Torreya State Park Sweetwater Tract ground cover vegetation assessment

For over 20 years DRP has worked to restore the Sweetwater Creek Tract from high yield timberland to a diverse sandhill community. While substantial progress has been made, DRP staff are concerned that some areas of restored ground cover may be dominated by a small number of species, and so lack the species diversity found in reference condition sandhills. DRP would like an analysis of current species diversity in addition to identifying the areas within the tract most suitable for harvesting seed for ground cover restoration elsewhere.

To assist with this effort FNAI will conduct three tasks:

4.1. To assess ground cover condition across the tract and guide seed harvesting, in spring of 2024, FNAI will sample vegetation composition and structure at 60, 10m x 10m plots following the established CVS methods (Level 5; Peet, 1998). CVS plots have a nested structure that is useful for assessing the rarity of species at a site. Thirty of the plots will be located within Sweetwater restoration zones qualitatively determined to most closely represent reference condition. The remaining 30 plots will be spread across the remaining restoration zones of lower diversity.

Data collected will be analyzed using Floristic Quality methods (Zomlefer et al., 2013). All species recorded will be assigned a “coefficient of conservatism” or “C” value of zero through ten, indicating their fidelity to high quality natural areas and likelihood of regrowing after disturbance. Zero represents the species most tolerant of disturbance and ten represents the species, including many rare plants, that are only found in ecologically intact areas. The mean C value will be calculated and compared to rank plots and zones. Species lists will also be compared between plots and between the two plot groupings to identify species which are recruiting naturally to restored sites and those that are missing and are possible candidates for reseeding.

4.2. FNAI will identify the best sites within the Sweetwater Tract to collect a diverse mix of native ground cover seed (for off-site restoration) and map boundaries of current and proposed seed harvest areas to guide future tree planting.

Task 5: Arthropod Control Plan Web Map

FNAI will maintain a web map to provide a single public access point for current Mosquito Control District (MCD) Arthropod Control Plans (ACP).

Add plans as pdfs to parks already on map (up to 15 plans will be added) Make minor changes (symbology, etc.) based on BNCR staff input.

References:

Peet, R.K., T.R. Wentworth and P.S. White. 1998. A flexible, multipurpose method for recording vegetation composition and structure. Castanea 63:262-274.

Zomlefer, Wendy & Chafin, Linda & Carter, Richard & Giannasi, David. (2013). Coefficient of Conservatism Rankings for the Flora of Georgia: Wetland Indicator Species. Southeastern Naturalist. 12.

790-808. 10.1656/058.012.0426.

BBudget and Schedule:

The Contractor shall submit all invoices by June 15, 2025 to DEP Contract Manager, Deborah Burr and Amy Horton.

Task Deliverable Date of Submission Total Payment

1.1 RPM invasive plant survey methodology

training

Documented completion of office training in Tallahassee

Dec 15, 2023 $6,151

1.2 Documented completion of field

training at location within FL Jun 15, 2024 $6,820

2.1 Random point meander invasive plant

surveys

Documented completion of sampling design and site selection meeting in Tallahassee

Dec 15, 2023 $6,151

2.2 & 2.3

Report including summary and analysis of all FNAI sampling results.

Annotated R code and/or Excel workbooks used for final analyses.

All compiled sampling data in BNCR specified ESRI File Geodatabase format

Jun 15, 2025

$200,000

$4.80/acre of Management Zone to be sampled with a minimum cost of $2,640 per park

Water bodies may be removed from acreage bringing down overall payment price.

3 Post-hurricane Michael restoration/recovery monitoring

Report including summary and analysis of natural community and groundcover sampling results, FQI analysis, and rare plant monitoring

Jun 15, 2024 $32,000

All compiled sampling data in BNCR specified ESRI File Geodatabase format

Torreya State Park Sweetwater Tract ground cover vegetation assessment

Report including summary and analysis of all collected CVS plot data, recommendation for ground cover seed harvest sites.

All compiled sampling data in BNCR specified ESRI File Geodatabase format as well as mapped boundaries of currently used seed harvest sites.

Jun 15, 2024 $22,500

5 Arthropod Control Plan Web Map with functionality specified above Jun 15, 2024 $5,184

MAXIMUM TOTAL FOR ALL ACTIVITIES IN TASK 208 NOT TO

EXCEED: $278,806

All invoices shall include the reporting period covered for the invoice amount billed.