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My field data collection was ultimately collected as a “snapshot” of the site on one day. I had been planning to collect data on multiple days over a period of weeks, however, it should be unnecessary to collect repeat information in such a short time span. Increased sampling could also introduce confounding factors, such as counting invertebrates more than once and skewing the data to show greater abundance and diversity when there is none.
I sampled two sites, with each site consisting of three transects. Because the study area was small, it was possible to sample the entire site with 100% coverage. Introducing randomization for the sake of randomization in this case would have introduced unnecessary rates of error into my study. This type of sample design was relatively easy to implement. My only concern was in counting mobile species more than once. Luckily, when I did encounter highly mobile species, I was able to keep an eye on them to reduce the error of counting species twice. In a larger site, it could be beneficial to introduce smaller plot sizes and randomization to avoid counting highly mobile species more than once.
I have noticed a greater diversity of invertebrates in the native plant garden setting, which I expected, but I did not notice a greater abundance of invertebrates, which is something I had expected to observe. Finding a small colony of ants in the turf lawn setting could account for this discrepancy as their numbers could artificially skew the data.
