User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
I have been collecting data for eight weeks over the course of the summer, to coincide with the mating season of frogs and toads on Prince Edward Island. I had four replicates at five locations randomly chosen throughout the South Shore Watershed of Prince Edward Island.
Every two weeks, I would visit five sites after sunset and record their mating calls with my iphone and I also recorded any visual sightings. Prior to the start of my data collection, I placed water temperature loggers at each site, so I was able to record water temperature for each night I was recording the calls. I did not have any trouble sampling, with the exception of mosquitos that attacked me mercilessly. I haven’t noticed any patterns that necessarily agree or disagree with my hypothesis-It is difficult to determine species abundance, especially at night with frogs. I am concerned that my data will show more correlation with mating season than farming. I have already figured on confounding factors based on their actual breeding patterns. I often find myself in these locations during the day, and I am able to see an abundance of leopard frogs, but I don’t hear them at night when recording. Conversely, I never see Spring Peepers, but I record them in abundance.
