User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
Based on the summary that the tutorial gave, the technique that had the fastest estimated sampling time was the systematic method. However, it was only slightly faster than the other methods.
The percent error for the Eastern Hemlock was the lowest for the random sampling method, at 4.7%, and was also fairly low for systematic sampling method at 11.5%. The percent error for the Sweet Birch was lowest using the systematic sampling method, at 15.7%. When looking at more common species, the systematic sampling method was overall the most accurate. For the rare species, none of the sampling methods were very accurate for the White Pine. The lowest percent error was 42.9% from the systematic sampling method. For the Striped Maple the random sampling method had a reasonable percent error at 8.57%. The accuracy greatly changed based on species abundance; the percent errors were generally much lower for the common species than the rare species.
Overall the percent error was the lowest for the systematic sampling method, with an average percent error of 22.0%; the random sampling method was the next best with a percent error of 25.9%. The Haphazard method was the least accurate, with an average percent error of 53.4%. Personally I also found the systematic sampling method to be the fastest one to complete, as you selected plots based on a pattern and didn’t have to find plots one by one on the grid.
