| Long-term and regional-scale vegetation classification projects allow for detailed natural examinations nativevegetationcommunitiesand the perturbations which may destabilize these systems.Largely missing from previous work characterizing B. tectoruminvasion, are long-term and regional-scale classifications of plant communities thatmeasure structural changes at the metacommunity level. To address this discrepancy,we comparedtwo extensive community surveys, separated by ten yearson the Idaho National Laboratory site. We sought to describe the diversity and community structure of the datasets to: 1) assess the practical applicability of U.S. National Vegetation Classification sagebrush steppe types ofthe region (NVC) and createa dichotomous key for plant communities of the upper Snake River Plain; 2) generate an up-to-date map of vegetation communities identified in the classification; and 3) consider the potential future compositional and functional trajectories of plant communities on the metacommunity level, given alterations to fire regimes by B. tectorum.Key words: Semi-arid; classification;machine learning;coexistence |