User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
I have chosen Rosa acicularis (prickly rose) as the organism I will study. It is common throughout the southern Yukon and can be found easily in most areas that have not been heavily developed. Around pumphouse pond, the area I have chosen to conduct my observations, I have observed this rose in various densities and morphologies. It appears most frequently along the sides of walking trails, power-line clearings, cleared lots, and at the edges between undisturbed and developed sites. It appears infrequently in the midst of stands of tall coniferous trees, far from trails and other disturbances.
Almost everywhere I found Rosa Acicularis growing, I also found Rhododendron groenlandicum (Labrador tea), though the inverse was not true. In fact, in many of the darkest, wettest parts of the forest, where prickly rose was least abundant, Labrador tea had grown leaves and appeared to be further in its seasonal development than in areas where the prickly rose was more abundant, where Labrador tea was still bare.
One area in particular, on the top of a bank at a clearing to the east of pumphouse pond, had a thicker-than-usual stand of rose bushes, most of which were above average in height, interspersed with fire weed (Chamaenerion angustifolium), a known pioneer species.
My hypothesis is that Rosa acacia is also a pioneer species which tolerates and/or requires many of the conditions present early on during a secondary succession. I predict that a random sample of plots representing gradients which include regimes of light, moisture, and inter-species interactions, will reveal discrepancies in the size and abundance of rose bushes.
Potential predictor variables include: light exposure, moisture regime, and other species present (# and type). Response variables include rose plant abundance, average plant height, and average fruit density. I am curious to see if, with sufficient replicate plots, any of these predictor and response variables can be specifically related to each other. For the sake of simplicity, all three predictor variables will be categorical, and all response variables will be continuous.
I will continue to use pumphouse pond as a general study location, though I will apply a grid over a map of the area and divide it into blocks which contain disturbances (roads, trails, developments) and blocks which do not, and randomly select an equal number of each category to sample 10 or more randomly selected sub-plots with respect to the predictor and response variables listed above. 
