The fqar package: R tools for analyzing floristic quality assessment data

Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA) is a standardized method for rating the ecological value of natural areas based on the plant species found within them (Spyreas, 2019;Swink & Wilhelm, 1994).Each species known to be found in a particular region is assigned a coefficient of conservatism, C, on a scale of 0-10 by experts in local flora (non-native species are generally assigned a zero C-value by default).Larger values of C correspond to species that tend to be found in undegraded sites, while lower values indicate species that are more tolerant to human impacts (Bauer, 2018).An inventory of the site is conducted and the average of the C-values found there is computed.This native mean C-value, sometimes weighted by the total number of plant species identified to give the so-called floristic quality index (Bowles & Jones, 2006), is frequently used by land managers and other agents to quantify an area's state of conservancy (Zinnen, 2021).