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For my Virtual Forest sampling strategies I chose the Snyder-Middleswarth Natural Area. The fastest sampling method was systematic sampling requiring only 10 hours of sampling while random and haphazard sampling required ~12.5 hours each. This appears mainly due to the amount of travel time to and from sample locations.
Common species such as Eastern Hemlock, Sweet Birch, and Red Maple appeared to be best represented by random sampling and haphazard sampling. Both produced low and sometimes negative values, indicating the true value and estimated value were extremely similar, or slightly overestimating.
More rare species of lower abundance, such as Yellow Birch, Chestnut Oa, Striped Maple and White Pine were often over represented through sampling. The systematic sampling indicated no Striped Maple or White Pine at all in the area which completely removes species from the area analysis. The haphazard sampling method demonstrated lower percent errors indicating that it is the most useful while analyzing rare species. The accuracy of species density decreased when analyzing rare species, % errors or over 100 or -100 indicate the data is not representative.
The sample size of 24 functioned well for random and haphazard methods, however, with the systematic method completely missed two species types. These rare species may be included in the data more efficiently if the sample size was increased to 50. Therefore, 24 was not sufficient in estimating the total abundance of tree species.
