User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
I watched my chosen area on Jan 5th, 2021 throughout the day from my garden. I decided to conduct my field research study on the presence of white-tailed deer. Specifically, the distribution and number of them across the three locations I identified along the environmental gradient.
The 3 locations I chose were as follows: open field, city road and residential area. The deer did not venture into residential, however, in the other locations, they tended to be present.
Deer’s travel in a herd to protect against potential predators.
My prediction is that the open space has the most vantage point to observe any potential threat and therefore they would most likely aggregate in this area.
One potential response variable is the number of deer (continuous). One potential predictor variable is the amount of access to the open field without the presence of a threat (categorical).
Based on the experimental design tutorial my experimental design would be classified as ANOVA
I am a bit confused as you have a hypothesis about plants and one about deer. You need to choose one hypothesis at this stage.
Also, you can’t test that the deer use the open space because of ability to see predators. Maybe they use it because of forage quality or use of open areas in winter is dependent on snow depth. Maybe they spend time in different areas at different times of the day and the time you are conducting your sampling influences your results. You will have no evidence of the relationship to predators.
I am also not sure how you would measure your predictor variable and remember you will need replication in your study in space / time or both.
I see you have updated this post to focus on one hypothesis. However, some of my points above will still have to be considered as you continue. You can not show that deer use the open space because of the ability to see predators by simply counting deer in each area. It could be for various reasons. One option would be to observe behaviour of focal individuals (e.g. pick one or two to measure each time) in a group (e.g. foraging vs. scanning) during a period of time and this is likely to change with group size, time of day, and within the treed vs. open area. This approach would also give your study more replication as well.