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This post describes the results from the virtual forest tutorial!
Result Summary- All Sampling Techniques (Here is a link to visually show my results).
The shortest estimated time to sample was 4 hours and 49 minutes for the distance, random or systematic.
Comparing percentage error between species for the most and least common species:
Red maple: (distance systematic, area haphazard, area random) 24.8%, 12.5%, 6.3%
White Oak: (distance systematic, area haphazard, area random) 50%, 4.9%, 51%
Yellow birch:(distance systematic, area haphazard, area random) 100%, 100%, 100%
White ash:(distance systematic, area haphazard, area random) 100%, 100%, 100%
Most accurate for the most abundant species: Area, random
Least abundant: American basswood was only picked up on the distance systematic. The accuracy decline with the rare species compared to the more dense species.
I propose that more than 24 sample points would have given a better overview of the area. There were rare species that were not sampled so with 40 points they might have been. 24 was enough sample points to measure the larger species but for the smaller ones more points should be used.
