User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
For the collection of my initial data, I used stratified random sampling to sample the number of Western sword ferns in the marsh area, upland transition areas and the upland area. My hypothesis is that Western sword ferns prefer the upland area compared to the marsh and upland transition as a result of drier soil. The difficulties I encountered were that I didn’t realize how dense some of the areas of the forest were, with lots of bushes and shrubs. I had to really bushwhack and force my way to some of the locations which were very challenging. The data I did collect was in line with my hypothesis so it was not that surprising. Although my sampling technique was very challenging I plan to keep using this technique since I feel it will yield more precise results although I do plan to increase the size of my sampling unit as a felt 1meter squared was too small for this study.
