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The biological attribute I have decided to study is the diversity of grasses in Wakamow Valley. I noticed that the preserved ecological zone of the valley had a wide variety of grasses compared to Conor Park and Tatawaw Park.
Wakamow Valley has quite a few distinct ecosystems/areas. The gradient I am using to observe in this project includes Tatawaw Park, an old wild animal park that was abandoned and closed down in the 80s. The old enclosures still stand with their concrete pads, and the old asphalt roads and parking lots are used for walking paths, frequented by bikers, hikers and their dogs. The second area is Conor Park, a well-maintained natural area often used for outdoor weddings, BBQ’s and walking. It also includes a large playground and parking area, but still has significant natural habitat intact. The third area of the gradient is the Kingsway Park Ecological Zone. This area is virtually untouched by humans anywhere other than the natural dirt walking path. The variation in grass diversity between these three distinct areas could be do to this gradient of increasing fragmentation. It could be that with increasing fragmentation, a decrease in biodiversity of grasses occurs. Based on this information, it can be assumed that Kingsway Park is the least fragmented area, Conor Park is moderately fragmented, and Tatawaw Park is significantly fragmented.
An alternative explanation is the heavy presence of uniform lawn grass in developed areas because of their anthropogenic selection for their aesthetic purposes and accessibility. To account for this possible confounding factor, clearly sodded areas should be excluded from the study.
Hypothesis: Grass biodiversity decreases with increased fragmentation of land.
Prediction: Fragmentation of habitat will negatively correlate with grass species diversity.
Response variable: diversity of grass species, continuous
Predictor variable: fragmentation level, continuous
Experimental design: regression
Really great job on the observations, hypothesis and potential design of your study! One suggestion: If you are going to consider your predictor variable (fragmentation level) as continuous, perhaps you can figure out how you can quantify the amount of fragmentation between study areas for your regression. For example, maybe you can count the amount of walking paths, amount of people that walk by in a certain amount of time, etc. to get a measure of fragmentation or development. If not, perhaps you can consider your predictor variable (fragmentation level) as categorical and you can use ANOVA for analysis. Other than that, everything else looks good! Your response variable should be easy to measure.
Great work!
Jesslyn