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DAY 1: August 5, 2018
Trout Lake
To identify the specific locations of interest it was important for me to research to understand where it is likely for me to catch Orconectes propinquus in North Bay, Ontario. After trying to research online for answers, I thought it would be more useful to speak to someone who catches crayfish and other species on a daily basis. Joe is a fisherman who owns a bait shop in North Bay, just along Lake Nipissing. At this point, I had already created my own crayfish traps using plastic bottles, fishing line, rope, and a piece of bread. The previous day, I had put these traps out in 5 different locations along the shoreline of Trout Lake, recorded the temperature of the water, air, time of day, etc., and returned to check out what I had caught. Unfortunately, my homemade traps were taken out of the water by pedestrians and left in the bush. I emptied those traps, put a new piece of bread in, and tossed them back into the water for another night while I tried to figure out how I was going to catch the crayfish without spending too much money on minnow traps.
While those traps stayed in the water over night, Joe the fisherman was kind enough to lend me 5 minnow traps, some rope, and dead minnows for the crayfish to eat. He informed me that he usually catches them closer to the dock, where there is more vegetation and the crayfish can hide. Around 11:15am, 21 degrees Celcius outside, and an average surface temperature of water of 18.12 degrees Celcius, I put out the traps in the 5 random locations along the gradient (some vegetation, some rocks, sand/mud, etc.).
Below is a photo of all 5 traps in 5 randomly selected locations:
DAY 2: August 6, 2018
Today I went to collect my traps to count the number of crayfish, if any, and number of other species, if any, in the trap. If there were crayfish, I planned on measuring the length of the crayfish to examine if there was a difference in size between Trout Lake and Lake Nipissing, and use that as evidence to the type of feeding of crayfish in that particular environment.
**Note: 3 of 5 homemade traps floated away in the water, 2 of them collected no species. This information was disregarded in the analysis of my study.
Lake Nipissing
After collecting the data for Trout Lake, it was time to move the traps to the other lake in North Bay, Lake Nipissing. In efforts to keep the traps safe, I chose a location where a family member of mine could look after the traps. It was also important that I kept the traps in a relatively similar environment, for example, an area of vegetation, rocks, and mud/sand, as crayfish are more likely to be caught in those areas.
Below are photos of all 5 traps in 5 randomly selected locations:
Hypothesis:
I hypothesize that there will be a greater abundance of Orconectes propinquus crayfish in Lake Nipissing as opposed to Trout Lake. I believe that the surface temperature of the water has a direct affect in the abundance of crayfish in both lakes.
- Response variable: number of Orconectes propinquus crayfish present
- Explanatory variable: average surface area temperature of Lake Nipissing and Trout Lake
- These variables would be considered continuous variables as they can take on any value between its minimum and maximum value
- Sampling technique: Simple Random
- Constructed imaginary baselines on the two maps of Lake Nipissing and Trout Lake
- Blindly pointed at 10 locations, and then blindly chose 5 of those 10 spots to determine 5 sample locations in each lake
- Some underlying processes that may cause the patterns I have observed may be that the average temperature of the spots in Lake Nipissing are generally warmer than the surface area temperature of Trout Lake. This may have an effect on the number of species, especially if the particular species prefers warmer temperatures.
