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For this blog post, I used an online community sampling exercise to sample Mohn Mill. I used three techniques, systematic sampling, random sampling, and haphazard sampling. The most efficient sampling technique was random sampling, taking approximately 11 hours and 51 minutes in comparison to the other techniques taking over 12 hours. The two most common species were the Red Maple and the White Oak, and the two rarest species were the White Ash and Yellow Birch. The percentages are listed below for comparison. The accuracy of the tests varied widely between the common and rare species, the common species having errors as low as 1.33%, and the rare species having errors as high as 1037.5%, the accuracy declining significantly with the rare species. In general, random sampling method had the lowest percent error for both common and rare species, excluding the White Ash. The most accurate of the common species was the random sampling of the Red Maple, with percent error of 1.33%. The most accurate of the rare species was significantly worse, from all sample methods of the Yellow Birch with a percent error of 100% across the board. I think 24 sample points is enough to capture the number of species in this density, but it would not hurt to have more data to further confirm conclusions made. I think that 24 sample points is not enough to accurately estimate the abundance of these species, as the percent error for the rare species was astronomical in comparison to that of the common species and more data is needed to capture more accurate numbers for the rare species.
RM random- 8%
ROM syst – 1.33%
RM hap – 7.12%
WO ran – 34.33%
WO syst – 46.44%
WO hap – 39.87%
YB ran – 100%
YB syst
TB hap
WA ran 100%
WA syst 1037.5%
WA hap – 937.5%
