Comparison of distance sampling methods for determining density of Delfard Golparaki forest, Jiroft

Jiroft has different climate and special plant habitat. One of the 18 habitat in Jiroft with special edaphic caracteristic is Tecomella undulata in Golparak Dalphard that these habitats was degraded because of any reasons. If we monitor density and vegetative characteristic, it is an important step in more protection in these habitat. At first with minimal area we determine minimum area of plat in key area. Three key areas in habitat with High, moderate and low density, in every key area we put 5 transect with 500 meters and we determine our point in every 100 meters. The plot size was 100*200 meter such as control. Results show that the mean densities in high, moderate and low density areas were respectively 45.7, 17.89 and 11.09 and the average percentage of canopy cover was 19.84, 15.32 and 12.5 and there is a statistically significant difference between different sampling methods in estimating density. Based on the results obtained in the area with high density, the method of the second nearest neighbor with an estimate of 0.9827, had the lowest accuracy and the method of the nearest neighbor with an estimate of Cottam and Curtis 2, -0.0017 had the highest accuracy. Also in area with low density, the common point method with an estimate of 0.0057 and the nearest second neighbor method with an estimate of 0.305 have the highest and lowest accuracy, respectively. It is suggested to use the nearest neighbor method in areas with high density of Tecumella undulata and the nearest point method in low density areas.