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Systematic, random, and haphazard sampling strategies were used in a virtual forest tutorial. The systematic sampling had the fastest sampling time (4 hours and 5 minutes), with haphazard being second (4 hours and 30 minutes), and random being the slowest (4 hours and 39 minutes). For the two most common species, Eastern Hemlock and Red Maple, the percentage errors varied. For Eastern Hemlock, the random sampling technique had the lowest percentage error (32.4%), haphazard (32.9%) with the second lowest, and systematic with the highest percentage error (37.5%). For Red Maple, haphazard sampling had the lowest percentage error (19.9%), random sampling had the second lowest (21.9%), and systematic with the highest percentage error (38.3%). The two most rare tree species, Striped Maple (40.0%) and White Pine (94.0%), percentage error was the highest for the systematic sampling strategy. Haphazard sampling had the lowest percentage error for Striped Maple (14.3%), and random sampling had the lowest for White Pine (8.3%). Random sampling for Striped Maple had the second lowest percentage error for Striped Maple (56.0%), and haphazard sampling for White Pine (78.6%). Accuracy decreased as species abundance decreased. the percentage error for the rare species ranged from 8.3-94.0% for White Pine, and 14.3-56.0% for Striped Maple. For the common species, the percentage error ranged from 32.4-37.5% for Eastern Hemlock, and 5.4-36.2% for Red Maple. Systematic sampling was the least accurate sampling strategy. Both random and haphazard sampling were approximately the same amount of accuracy. If all the seven species sampled were included, random was more accurate 43% of the time as well as haphazard, with systematic being accurate 14% of the time.
