User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
After entering my data into excel I found that it was difficult to display the data as a whole without breaking out the separate data sets gathered. Since I had gathered information on predators and a separate group of data on prey, I had to find a way to display this in a way that showed the relationship. Eventually I settled on the average of the number of signs of predator activity and also the average number of signs of prey activity.
The result in graph showed an immediate trend between the two, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how clear the relationship was. However, I also had to reconcile that I had gathered only a single weeks worth of data from 35 point counts (Conducted each day). While there was a lot of separate data to draw from I realized that a longer term study over a month or two in less areas may have given my data more weight and allowed me to see a more longer term trend such as is predicted in Lotka-Volterra models.
Overall, even with a shorter time duration of data gathering, I came away with a better understanding of why long term studies really hold alot more weight than shorter duration studies.
