User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
The research project as a whole was quite enjoyable. I had trouble planning the initial stages of my sampling, but once I understood what I wanted to study the sampling came along fairly well. One hard part of this study was not having feedback on my small assignments over 40 days. This was during a time when I was doing my field experiments and formulating my data. When I received feedback, I became aware that I had made errors by including raw data on my graph, and ended up changing the results of my experiment to exclude slope aspect. After changing my data to a table that summarized my information. I was able to disprove my hypothesis. At first, I thought the results were underwhelming. However, when I began interpreting my results, I was fascinated with what I had found. Overall, the process was informative and I value the science of Ecology much more than when I started. I ended up learning how detrimental the invasive species Rubus Armeniacus can be to native vegetation, as it is capable of dominating interspecies competition within edge communities and disturbance zones on Vancouver Island. Most of all I like how ecological theory has changed my perception of the surrounding community, as I spent much time exploring its reaches, and learning about environmental processes at work.
