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The organism that I decided to mainly observe were several types of grass which were mainly; long lawn grass, clover, short zoysia grass.
Three location I chose to make observation was; Preserved hill nearby the church, Ornamental stone steps in apartment complex, Ornamental garden in the apartment complex. Those three areas had been selected based on how the gradient of ornamental construction process. As it goes from preserved hill to ornamental garden land development gradient gets denser.
Observation of the area was based on three categories; how equally types of grass were distributed per area, how abundant each species were, and finally each characters of the species depending on the area. First in conserved hill, distribution of grasses were not even and species were barely observed, all I could observe was big rocks and dry trees and fell down leaves. Barely seen grasses were dry already, it just shown certain trees and that was all. Secondly in Ornamental stone steps, grasses were fairly distributed evenly but it was majorly covered with green healthy clovers rather than other types of grass. Although some short grass was observed they were dry already. Finally, in Ornamental garden the area was majorly covered with long lawn grass, they were all green and healthy, they were also distributed evenly along the trees and bushes and the species were majorly long lawn grass. It was hard to believe that these plants are growing in this cold whether.
After the observation, I assumed that as more artificial work was observed, the species were more abundant and fresh, compared to natural region. It might be because of the intention of it, ornamental function of the area. Due to this thought, I could come up with and hypothesis that, as more human induced changes occurs in land, the types of species are more abundant, and they grow more fresh compared to natural regions.
Potential responser variable that I could measure would be types of species observed per area and this variable is categorical. Potential explanatory variable is region that has got more range of intervention of land changes, this variable is continuous. And in this case potentially, logistic regression would be an ideal experimental design.
Hi Sohe,
Your observations at preserved hill and ornamental garden sound very intriguing. The relationship between grass abundance and human activity you observed is very interesting. One point of clarification I would like to ask for is what you mean when you say the grass is more fresh. Does this mean that the ornamental plant appears more upright than its natural counterpart, or that its colours are more vibrant? Your responding variable sounds like it would be easily measured in the field. Your idea of using logistic regression for an experiment design sounds very plausible and easy to carryout in the field. Good luck with the rest of your project!