Supplementary materials

Appendix 1: Fieldwork protocol

The point-intercept method was used to assess plant species' abundance. A gridded quadratic aluminium frame of used to systematize the distribution of points within the 25 × 25 cm sampling area with 5 × 5 cm spacing. The frame had two parallel grid layers, made of nylon fishing line, in order to provided a fixed trajectory for the vertical stick, which was a 0.8 cm thick wooden stick. The frame was placed on four aluminum legs, with a height of 50 cm.