Iranian Journal of Applied Ecology

To investigate the effects of plot size, shape and number on accuracy and precision of the estimates, forage production data of 5 regions of northern pastures of the country, collected separately by 640 one-square meter plots, were simulated using R software in a 640 m² macro- plot with dimensions 20×32 m. The adequate sample size of different plot sizes of 1×1, 1×2, 2×2, 2×4, 4×4 and 4x8 m were obtained by the sketch method which were 60, 50, 40 ,30, 5, and 5, respectively. When the plot was sampled in different levels and shape based on the adequate plot numbers, almost all of them showed a mean equal to the actual mean. However, the highest precision was obtained using a 1x1 plot with the lowest SE. Comparison of plots with the same size and different shapes revealed that long-length rectangle plots show the highest precision. It is obvious that in actual situation of non-simulated studies with unknown parameters, the sampling guidelines of this paper will be helpful for proper and accurate estimation of the parameters.