Comparison of Performance of three the multi-scale plots for evalution of palnt diversity in Karsanak Rangeland of Shahrekord

Species diversity measurement is an important key to conserve, monitor and evaluate vegetation as well as choosing the appropriate management strategies. Although managers seek for a rapid technique to assess the biodiversity, meanwhile, precision, accuracy and easy to use of plots are important criteria for measuring species diversity. To achieve these goals three plots, i.e. modified Whittaker plot, intensive modified Whittaker plot and C plot were evaluated to choose the appropriate size and number of plots to evaluate species diversity. In this study, the former is the newest version of the modified Whittaker plot that is being applicable with the latter for the first time in Iran and another important point that the emphasis should be put on it is that the outcomes of C plot are introduced for the first time in the world. Karsanak Rangeland was chosen two grazing intensities of light and medium and two slope aspects of the eastern and western including the four treatments of light–eastern, light-western, heavy-eastern and heavy-western. Each plot in three replicates per treatment was allotted as random systematic sampling. After collecting vegetation data, indices of diversity, richness and evenness of species were calculated using the software Past. Comparison of species diversity in different treatments was performed using ANOVA on SPSS software and graphs were plotted using Excel software.