Post 4: Sampling strategies

Three types of sampling were used in this online experiment. Below are the statistics collected from the test.

Table 1. Sampling method data for common species.

It can be seen in table 1 that systematic sampling took the least amount of time, being 12 hours and 15 minutes, which is still a considerable amount of time. The most common species in this experiment were the eastern hemlock and the sweet birch trees, and the least common was striped maple and white pine trees. The calculated % error for each of the sampling methods is outlined in Table 1. The Random Sampling method can be deemed most accurate for common species based on its low % error of 0.68 for both the eastern hemlock and sweet birch, when compared to the others. The Random Sampling method is the best for rare species, as determined by its lower % error values (table 2). However, the % error for all sampling methods in terms of rare species was very high. The accuracy of all three sampling methods declines for rare species when compared to using it for common species. The most accurate sampling methods for common species can be concluded to be Systematic sampling and Random sampling, with random sampling being most optimal based on their low % error values. In the same manner, the random sampling method is the best option for rare species. 24 samples were found to be insufficient, and in order to produce more accurate estimate results, more samples should be taken.

Table 2. Sampling method data for rare species.