User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
In module 3, I collected using point counting. I went out early in the morning and stayed for even increments of time at each plot. I found I got a good sense of surrounding wildlife and human activity but struggled to find the specimen I was looking for. I realized that this was further proof that my hypothesis is correct and thus persevere with my sampling strategy. I did some hiking following my samples to investigate the area further and found a sign stating dates the lake above the creek is stocked biannually and is about to be stocked in November 2020. I expect to find higher numbers of fry due to this and will resample to confirm.
While I do not feel the need to modify my approach, I do feel I should include human traffic in my official data as it was a significant finding and will show the overall impact on fish survival. I am also considering pollutants based on lack of aquatic plant life.
This is an interesting hypothesis to investigate and very informative given the increasing human activity in these types of communities. If you plan to include human activity, what do you think would be the most effective way to do so? As for confounding varibles, do you consider the water levels/precipitation to be a variable that could have an effect on your results? Best of lukc in your study!