User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
I had a hard time inserting my data onto a graph as my numbers were a little strange and I had multiple data points with the same x and y-value. I initially thought I would use a scatter plot but after trying that in Excel, I realized it looked quite messy and the data was difficult to understand. So I decided the best way to illustrate the patterns in my data would be two bar graphs that show the means of soil moisture and the means of number of ferns for each transect. I felt the trends in my data were much easier to understand this way. Although I only submitted the bar graphs figure for Small Assignment 5, I think I may also use a table in my paper to insert the specific data from each quadrat.
Based on my bar graphs, I could clearly see that both Transect A and C had similar levels of soil moisture, but Transect A has a much higher number of ferns than Transect C. Furthermore, although Transect B was the most dry, it had a similar number of ferns to Transect C. This outcome is not what I expected as I had hypothesized that as soil moisture increases, the number of ferns would also increase. I will have to consider other factors that may contribute to this pattern while writing my paper, including shade, degree of slope, and soil pH.
