User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
My research investigated the changes in vegetation and percent species composition along a slope located in northern British Columbia. The results of my research supported my hypothesis in that the vegetation grew more complex at higher elevations, possibly due to varying amounts of light and differing microclimates. In terms of study design, I did have to change my quadrat sampling size from 1 m2 to 25 m2 to account for the increasing size of plants, however this could have introduced some bias so I converted all area measurements to a percentage in order to compare percent coverage of species between quadrat sizes. After reading the literature on my topic I definitely became more interested and in further courses may pursue more research in this area.
I did find designing a study challenging at first. I found it difficult to spot a pattern in nature and choose an element that I wanted to explore further. After choosing my phenomena of interest, the research design and data collection were fairly straight forward. I definitely gained a stronger appreciation for the development of ecological theory and for those who make a career out of it.
