User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
The three sampling strategies that I used in the virtual forest tutorial were haphazard sampling (area), random sampling (area), and systematic sampling (area). The fastest estimated sampling time was the systematic sampling strategy (12 hours 36 minutes), as it only covered a small area within the region. With regards to the rare species, the fasted estimated sampling time was determined to be the haphazard sampling strategy, although it had a poor accuracy (1 hours 52 minutes).
With regards to the systematic sampling strategy, the common species had percentage errors of 1.8% and 5.3%. The rare species had percentage errors of 100% and 82%. With regards to the haphazard sampling strategy, the common species had percentage errors of 23.4% and 26.7%, and the rare species had percentage errors of 48.6% and 32.4%. Lastly, with regards to the random sampling strategy, the common species has percentage errors of 5.4% and 8.3% and the rare species had percentage errors of 32.7% and 48.6%.
Upon comparison of the percentage errors for the common and rare species based on the three different sampling strategies used, it can be concluded that the rare species had higher percentage errors than the common species in all three strategies. As such, it can be suggested that accuracy increases as abundance increases. Based on the results, it can also be concluded that the systematic strategy is the most accurate, whereas the haphazard strategy is the least accurate from the three.
