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In the virtual forests tutorial, the three sampling strategies used were Systemic, Random and Haphazard with an area-based approach. According to the results, the random sampling technique had the fasted estimated sampling time of 4 hours and 45 minutes. The other two sampling methods, systemic and haphazard sampling had a much slower estimated sampling time of 12 hours and 35 minutes and 12 hours and 44 minutes respectively. In this tutorial the most common species were Eastern Hemlock and Red Maple. The calculated percent error for Eastern Hemlock and Red Maple for each of the sampling methods were:
- Systematic
- Eastern Hemlock – 6.36%
- Red Maple – 24.47%
- Random
- Eastern Hemlock – 23.26%
- Red Maple – 42.72%
- Haphazard
- Eastern Hemlock – 8.07%
- Red Maple – 12.53%
In contrast, the two rarest species were White Pine and Stripped Maple. Their calculated percent error for each of the sampling site were:
- Systematic
- White Pine – 233.33%
- Stripped Maple – 100.00%
- Random
- White Pine – 100.00%
- Stripped Maple – 21.14%
- Haphazard
- White Pine – 138.10%
- Stripped Maple – 31.43%
Based on these results, it can be concluded that the Haphazard or Systematic sampling methods were the most accurate for the most common species and the Random or Haphazard techniques were the most accurate for the two rarest species. However, as demonstrated by the above results, the accuracy of the sampling methods declined when looking at the rarest species. The high variation between the percent error values could be a result of the small sample points. 24 was not a sufficient number of sample points; in order to produce more a accurate estimation of abundance more sample points is necessary.
