User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
I have sampled exactly as I described in the previous post: semi-randomly selected 5 shoreline sites on Eskers Lake West and Eskers Lake East 80-100m apart and within those 5 sites haphazardly sampled 3 1mX1m quadrats giving me 15 replicates.
The problems that I encountered were site access issues and difficulty identifying plant species. In the end, the issue of site access may not be terrible. The western shorelines of Eskers Lakes are at a lower elevation and have more wetlands while the northern and eastern shorelines are fairly steep and formed by eskers and would require boat access. I am interested in soil moisture as the predictor variable so sampling well-drained steeper locations would not be as pertinent to the research. As I expected, the plant identification was difficult for certain species so I made generalizations in my field notes (ie. “sedges” over “beaked sedge” or “water sedge”).
I have noticed that the Labrador Tea always co-exist with the Black Spruce. Perhaps the presence of Black Spruce indicates higher soil moisture and the Labrador Tea is tolerant to a wide range of shade conditions.
