Table 6.

The highest performing 4-, 5-, and 6-metric VMMIs developed using calibration data (n = 911 sites)

VMMI	Metrics for candidate VMMI	L site mean	L site SD	S:N	Max r among metrics	Mean r among metrics	Sensitivity (%)
4-metric	Floristic quality assessment index Relative importance native species Richness disturbance-tolerant species Relative cover native monocots	67.3	11.5	19.4	0.396	0.101	48.1
5-metric	Floristic quality assessment index Percent richness native species Relative cover native species Richness disturbance-tolerant species Relative cover native monocots	71.6	11.2	16.0	0.599	0.195	48.1
6-metric	Floristic quality assessment index Relative frequency native species Relative cover native species Richness disturbance-tolerant species Relative cover native monocots Mean coefficient of conservatism	72.1	12.5	23.4	0.727	0.306	48.1

L = least disturbed (reference) sites, n = 222; M = most disturbed sites, n = 266. SD = standard deviation, S:N = signal/noise (based on the 911 sampled sites and 78 revisit sites from calibration data set), r = Pearson correlation. Sensitivity = Percent M sites with VMMI values significantly less than the fifth percentile of the distribution of VMMI values for L sites based on an interval test, alpha = 0.05 (Kilgour et al. 1998; Van Sickle 2010)