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For my research project, I am collecting data on soil moisture to see how it affects the distribution of Cedar trees. I am also collecting extra data on moss biomass. To do this, I am using 0.5 m2 quadrats randomly placed in both sites with Cedar trees and sites that have other trees but no Cedar trees. My data collection is ongoing at this point. I have so far collected nine moss samples from sites without Cedar trees, eight moss samples from sites with Cedar trees. My goal is to collect ten samples from each site type. Moss sampling has been going on without any problems since I fixed the GPS problem discussed in blog post five.
My biggest problem implementing the soil sample portion of my project so far has been finding the time to do it. I am aware that soil moisture varies on a day to day basis, especially with the intermittent rain that comes with spring in Nanaimo, so I must collect all my samples in one go. My plan is to collect 20 soil samples (10 for each type of site) so I know I will have to block off an entire day to do this. I will spend a day this weekend to get it done.
Since my hypothesis has changed to the effects of soil moisture on Cedar tree distribution, moss biomass has become my ancillary pattern. It seems that there is more moss in areas where I predict there will be less soil moisture. This doesn’t make sense to me, as moss tends to grow best in moist areas. This may mean there are other influences here that I am missing.
Update: I have now taken all my soil samples. The only problem I ran into was that I couldn’t dig very far down, as there were too many rocks, so all of my samples are from the surface. Other than that, I successfully collected all my samples before it began to rain!
