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I chose to sample by area. Please refer to Table 1 for estimated values and percentage error.
Systematic sampling was the fasted technique, taking 12 hours and 41 minutes (compared to 13 hours and 13 hours and 9 minutes for haphazard and random, respectively).
In the case of common species (Eastern Hemlock and Sweet Birch), the simple random technique had the highest percentage error, while the haphazard technique had the lowest. When sampling rare species (Striped Maple and White Pine), percentage error was highest when using the systematic technique and lowest using the simple random technique.
There was a significant decrease in accuracy based on species abundance. When sampling common species, the average sampling error was 13% compared to that of rare species, which was 104.1%.
Overall, the most accurate sampling strategy was haphazard.
