User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
I have made several revisions to my sampling in the field. While the overall strategy will stay the same, haphazard with subjective location selection, I will be decreasing the size of my quadrats from 100cm x 100cm to 30cm x 30cm.This reduction will allow for quicker observation of the damaged area and give an overall clearer picture. In addition to the reduction of my quadrats I will now be looking at the damage to the Kentucky Bluegrass species instead of the Ryegrass species. With the turn from winter to spring, Kentucky Bluegrass has shown itself to be the dominant species in the grassy area. Also, I will now be taking 10 replicate samples, 5 grazing and 5 non-grazing, in order to satisfy the rule of ten. In satisfying the rule of ten I hope to achieve a more accurate representation of the ecological processes that are occurring. There were no major difficulties in implementing the original sampling design, but I believe that these changes will allow for a more streamline process. There is one ancillary pattern that may have an effect on the original hypothesis. This pattern is the increasing presence of the number of geese in the grazing areas with increasingly warm weather. It appears that on warm and sunny days the number of geese in the grazing area of the park will increase by anywhere from 2 to 8 geese. While this does not change the fact that the geese are damaging the Kentucky Bluegrass in the area, it is worth observing the damage done on days where geese numbers are higher versus the damage done on days where geese numbers are at 2 or 3.
