Summary of vegetation sampling for selected transects in Pool 8 Langrehr, H. A. 1992. Summary of vegetation sampling for selected transects in Pool 8, Upper Mississippi River System, 1990. Annual report by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Onalaska, Wisconsin, for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Environmental Management Technical Center, Onalaska, Wisconsin, October 1992. EMTC 92-S001. 29 pp. (NTIS # PB94-103728) ABSTRACT Vegetation, fish, and water quality were the three components chosen for data collection for the Long Term Resource Monitoring Program during 1990. This report represents the vegetation aspect of the study done on Pool 8 of the Upper Mississippi River System. The purpose of the vegetation effort is to conduct a baseline study to document the abundance and distribution of Pool 8 terrestrial and aquatic vegetation during the next decade. Quantitative sampling along transects in 1990 provided descriptive summaries of species occurrence for selected locations within the pool. Five transects were chosen to represent Pool 8. The transects were divided into plant communities (polygons). One hundred forty-two aquatic polygons and 70 terrestrial polygons were encountered along the transects. Flowering, fruiting, and vegetative specimens were collected from the transects as well as from other areas of Pool 8. Ninety-five species from 51 families were found. The most common plant communities in Pool 8 in 1990 were wet meadow, floodplain forest, shallow marsh, and deep marsh. Phalaris arundinacea was the dominant species in wet meadow communities. Within the floodplain forest community, Acer saccharinum was the most common species. The most abundant species encountered in the shallow marsh community was Sagittaria latifolia. Ceratophyllum demersum was the most frequent species in deep marsh communities. KEYWORDS aquatic, plants, vegetation, Mississippi, river, ecology, trend analysis