Post 5: Design Reflections

My experiment takes place over 3 areas which are 10m x 10m in size. I subdivided each area into grids of 25 subplots each measuring 2m x 2m. I gave each grid coordinates of x and y values. To pick the initial subplot in each area, I used the google number generator with n = 5. I rolled it twice, with the first number acting as the x coordinate and the second number acting as the y coordinate. From there I used a systematic sampling method as I found it to be the most accurate in the virtual forest tutorial. From the first subplot, I would increase and decrease the x value until I have x = 1, 2, 3, 4 ,5. Y-values were y and y-1 (where y – 1 = 0, would wrap around back to around to y = 5).

I measured the number of individuals, the distance between the each individual to its closest neighbour and the height of each individual. I included averages of the last two measurements.

The soil moisture was previously determined at each area using a simple garden moisture probe in the geographic center of each area. The moisture probe had a scale of 1 (driest) to 10 (wettest). Area 1 (nearest to the man-made water source) measure at 6.0, area 2 ( 2om from the water source) measured at 3.5, and area 3 (farthest from the water source) measured at 1.8.

I found this method extremely easy to carry out in regards to resources and time required. The data did surprise me in that it seems to adhere to my expected results based on my hypothesis. I intend to sample area 1 and area 3 in the same manner.