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This is one of the graphs I made with the statistics program Minitab18 after I ran an ANOVA on my data. I struggled quite a bit remembering how to run the analysis but I’m happy that I figured it out. I made another one similar to this that used aspect (NSEW) as the categorical variable, and I made a simple bar graph to visually show the differences between lichen coverage between tree type.
I predicted that the crustose lichen would be higher in abundance on coniferous trees which it was, see Figure 1 (a) below, and I was surprised that fruticose, Figure 1 (c), was also significantly different (p=0.001), favouring coniferous trees. Although moss coverage was not in my hypothesis I thought it would be higher on deciduous trees which it was (d). Aspect did not turn out to have a significant effect on lichen distribution except for the fruticose type which had a higher abundance on the eastern side of the tree (Not displayed on this graph).
I have grown quite fond of lichens and would love to explore so much more about them. I noticed that a lot more lichens were growing up higher on the trunk and in the canopy, so it would be cool to study that.
Figure 1: ANOVA results comparing the averages of the three dominant lichen growth forms (a, b, c) and moss (d) coverage between tree type, deciduous or coniferous. The means are displayed at each point on the interval plot.
