Category: Nancy Elliot

Blog Post 1: Observations.

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For my project I selected Uplands Park as my research site, specifically the beach. Uplands Park is a 76-acre property located in a suburban neighbourhood in Victoria BC. The park is full of woodland trails and undeveloped natural reserve land. Terrain is relatively flat throughout the park and drops off a little closer to the beach. The ground is mainly soil, with a transition to a rockier terrain closer to the beach. Vegetation varies throughout the park. Taller trees are localized in the interior whereas bushes and grasses line the outskirts and roads that pass through the park. The rocky beach on the eastern side is home to many different types of seaweed and sea life. Barnacles are dispersed along the rocks close to the water. There are many tide pools along the beach with small communities living in them.

August 17 2017.

11:00AM, 19ᵒC, mainly sunny, wind 4km/h, humidity 64%

 

Questions:

  1. Could barnacle characteristics such as size and density per unit area squared be correlated with different water exposure levels?
  2. Tide pools situated at different elevations, thus flooding frequency, seemed to contain quite different compositions of plants and animals. Could there be a correlation between species present in a tide pool community and the frequency in which the tide pool is flooded?
  3. Could the characteristics of the seaweed in the tide pools be influenced by frequency of flooding?

 

Blog Post 9. Field Research Reflections

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Working with insects without capturing them is a very hard thing to do. You not only have to count the individuals that appear to look the same but also need to be specific in characteristics that you write down as it makes it easier to identify actual species later on.

As I started the data collection, I realized that trying to count the insects just at the moment of visit is not enough. And the approach was switched to five continuous visits from site A to site B and then back. Mean values representing the day value appeared to give more consistent and believable results. When I started writing the report, I read many papers which tested exact hypothesis but used more precise techniques to obtain data. The effort it takes experts to obtain viable data set is enormous, most of studies evaluate up to 3000 individuals that are captured. The effects related to one cause have so many variables that it is almost impossible to conclude on something. This course has definitely increased my appreciation for a subject matter. Most of my university work was performed in the lab, but working in the field appears to me much harder because you basically have no control over the environment that effects the subject of your interest.

I hope this blog was somewhat interesting to read, and could warn someone who decides to perform similar study on the difficulties that he/she might face.

Blog Post 8. Tables and Graphs

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Figure 1. Species richness as a daily value per observation site. This value is defined as a number of distinct species recorded on each visit. McArthur island park A is a site on the western exit from the park, and B is on the eastern. Riverside park A is located on southern entrance and B is located at the northwest shore. McDonald Park contained a single observation site, therefore, no data representing B site is present.

 

Before using any statistical analyses, it was important to see whether collected data had variation, in order to be a viable representative. I chose the scatterplot to show the distribution of means representing number of individual species observed at one visit. The pattern that can be seen on this graph is that the sites located in the same park have similar values for species richness. But the values between parks differ. Because these parks are located in three different urban environments, effects of urbanization were further compared with distribution patterns. One paper that I read stated that bees usually stick to one site even if a better one present within short range. This means that sites A and B for both parks should be assessed as independent even though the data seems very similar.

Because this graph was not supposed to have an actual x value, excel was not able to create it. MiniTab16 was used instead as it allows to set x value while changing y value.

Blog Post 7. Theoretical Perspectives

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Almost every secondary school student, would be able to recognize basic importance of bees. As a whole, pollinators community contribute to reproduction of almost 180,000 flowering plant species and many crops. In fact different sources indicate that they are responsible for 20-35% of worlds food production. Most of recent studies indicate a drastic decline in pollinators community, which is associated with anthropogenic changes. Because we are so dependent on pollinators, it is greatly important to maintain their number at equilibrium. First step in establishing such equilibrium is defining the reasons behind the decline and specifying patterns that underline it. One of such reasons is urbanization that is constantly increasing its level, which leads to fragmentation and loss of habitat. Therefore, it is important to find the patterns of pollinators community distribution in response to urbanization gradient. Further down the line, specific patterns preferred by the community could possibly be recreated in the highly disturbed areas and maintain the population preventing it from decline. Specifically in my study, I would like to evaluate not only impervious surface effects but also incorporate the encounters with anthropogenic objects as one of the factors effecting the distribution.

Keywords

Pollinators, Urbanization, Conservation

Blog Post 6. Data collection

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The data collection was performed at three city parks: Riverside Park, McDonald Park and McArthur Island Park. The counting would start at 10 a.m. and would last 1 hour where 5 counts were done 20 minutes apart. This procedure was conducted for all of the sites. Both Riverside Park and McArthur Island Park contained two flowerbeds, but the whole territory of McDonald Park contained only one. This meant that haphazard sampling will be used and sites are subjectively chosen as no other opportunity of pollinators observation was present. Therefore, no problems appeared in implementing sampling design. On the duration of five non-continuous days’ counts were done with rotation of order of sites visited. The time of 10 a.m. was chosen by a recommendation of local beekeeper who stated that at 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. I could observe adult individuals and then from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. I could observe the training flights of the young. Rotation of times for visit was implemented in order to avoid errors occurring because some species could appear at the site at later times of the day. Species observed were counted and described in the field journal and later identified using COMMON POLLINATORS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Visual Identification Guide that could be found at http://borderfreebees.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/common-pollinaotrs-of-bc-v40.pdf

The only problem I found is that sometimes description I provide in the field is not specific enough to be identified as a single species but fits a few, and therefore will be excluded from the further analysis unless representing unique species. Few additional patterns were noticed during data collection. Wasps appeared to be dependent on the outside temperature as encounters were observed only at the hottest timeslots. No wasps were observed in a suburb McDonald Park even though it has almost no shade by big trees. The gardener who was servicing the park told me that it is very common for local wasps to build their nests under the rooftops of the houses which could explain their absence in this park.

Blog Post 5. Design Reflections

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The first day I went counting is not included in the dataset as the count was made at 6 p.m. In order to avoid intense heat during the day I decided that it will make sense to do the counts later in the afternoon, but only a few species were found. I found a forum for beekeepers which stated that flights appear from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then training flights of the young can be observed from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. First two days I used total number of individuals at the moment of observation counts. But for results to be more statistically significant and to avoid errors, further observation included hour counts at the site divided in 5 sets 20 min each which allows me to find the mean value for further analysis.

The data collected so far is consistent with widely accepted hypothesis that urbanization gradient effects abundance and richness of pollinators community, but studies which compare urban and suburban areas rarely include remote suburban areas like McArthur island park and it appears that both values are higher in this park.

Blog Post 4. Sampling

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In the virtual forest tutorial presented in the module 3 tutorial I chose Mohn Mill forest. The tree sampling techniques I used were Area: Sampling along a topographic gradient, Random sampling and Haphazard or subjective sampling. Sampling along a topographic gradient appears to be the fastest one a and took 12 hours, 36 minutes and Random sampling was the slowest and took 13 hours, 10 minutes. Even though, the time spent on sampling was almost equal Haphazard technique had shown significantly lower percent error for the most common species.

 

Species           Technique used             Estimated                Actual              Percent error

Red maple        Systematic sampling        420                        403.74             4.04%

Random                               416                        403.74             3.05%

Haphazard                     404                      403.74          0.075%

Which hazel     Systematic sampling        140                         142.4               1.7%

Random                                76                         142.4               45.2%

Haphazard                     149                       142.4               4.7%

 

Systematic technique appears to have the most precise data for the rarest species.

 

Species              Technique used             Estimated                Actual              Percent error

 

Downy              Systematic sampling       8                      9.9                  19.2%

juneberry         Random                                 20                        9.9                   102%

Haphazard                              4                         9.9                   59%

Black Tupelo   Systematic sampling     24                      35                    31.4%

Random                                  26.9                     35                    23.14%

Haphazard                             60                         35                    71.4%

 

 

 

Blog Post 3. Ongoing Field Observations

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I visited the site continuously two days in a raw for continuous observations on July 25th and July 26th. As I mentioned in my first blog entry a specific interest was drawn to the local pollinator community. By the recommendation of local bee farmer, the time frame for observation was chosen to be between 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. to observe adult individuals and then 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. to observe the training flights of the young.

The second flower garden was also observed on the territory of the island, as well as two other parks belonging to Kamloops were observed in order to formulate an adequate hypothesis. Two additional sites were the city parks. McDonald park is located in a suburb area without any corridors separating it from suburbs. Riverside park is located beside the business district and is a highly disturbed area with the busy railway tracks adjacent to the park. Species richness and abundance varied among the sites, but points within the site seem to correlate with each other in richness. It seems like there could be an interesting correlation between pollinators abundance and richness, and the surrounding area of the park where data is collected. Therefore, hypothesis to be tested is that Pollinators abundance and richness will vary among the sites that represent different levels of urbanization. With the higher level of development (concrete to green cover ratio, amount of human disturbance) pollinators communities are going to have decreased abundance and richness. One point to be noted is that there are many studies present about bees being attracted to the suburb areas because of high density of flowering plants in gardens. Therefore, it will be specifically interesting to see the pollinators response to the fact that one of the parks is separated from the suburbs by 4-meter stream and therefore is an island. The response variable will be the number of species observed at a site and number of individuals within each species. This variable is continuous.

The explanatory variable in this case will be the amount of development adjacent to the site, it will be a categorical variable consisting of two parameters concrete to green cover ratio, amount of human disturbance and will be represented on the scale from high and low.

  

 

Blog post 2. Sources of scientific information

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The paper I would like to use for analysis in this post comes from a well-recognized journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B and was placed in the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. Pollination services enhanced with urbanization despite increasing pollinator parasitism. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2016;283(1833):20160561. doi:10.1098/rspb.2016.0561. by Theodorou P, Radzevičiūtė R, Settele J, Schweiger O, Murray TE, Paxton RJ.

That can be found at:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4936033/

This paper fits the classification: Academic, peer-reviewed research material.

The fact that it is written by two Master degree students and two supervisors with doctorate degrees who specialize on pollinators and effects affecting them; Both in-text citations and bibliography present we can conclude that it is an Academic material. By the fact that journal that published the paper includes acceptation and publishing dates we can assume that it is peer-reviewed. The presence of methods and results section with field techniques included indicates that this is a research material.

 

Blog Post 1. Observations

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For my research project, I chose the site that is designated as a City Park. McArthur island park is an area of 51 ha based on the parks official website data. It is surrounded by a sub-urban environment but is separated from it by a corridor – river pocket that makes it an island and connects to the big land by two bridges and a bridge with deranges which appears to control the water level in spring. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any information on the origin of this river pocket (man-made or naturally occurring). The GPS data for the site is Latitude 50,6960; Longitude -120,3785. I visited the site on Saturday July 22 at 15:30 for the primeral assessment, the weather was +29°C with 18 km/h of western wind, and humidity of 62%. The site appears to be a highly disturbed area because it contains 23 sport facilities as well as biking routs and a golf course. Therefore, majority of the area is covered by the man-made loan grass, ratio of green cover to concrete from the maps appears to be 5:1. The area of interest was mainly located on the western part of the park. It is a line of wild growth on one side bordering with the river valley and on the other side boarders with the cycling route that is 3,5 meters wide and then with the golf and soccer court (circled on the picture attached). The water level drops significantly in late September, creating a solid ground that connects the island to the sub-urban areas until mid-April. On the northern part of the area of interest man-made butterfly garden was assessed as well indicated by a dot on the map.

The vegetation is majorly represented by birch trees Betulla, young willow trees Salix, burdocks Arctium, low area by the water is covered in Polytrichum communis, Psilotum and Tetraphis pellucida. Middle height area is majorally represented by rough horse tail Equisetum.

The butterfly garden contained Verbena, Delphiniums, tiger lilies, Fleabane, poppy flowers, common mullein, and yellow daisies.

Young deer prints were found on the sand by the water and later was confirmed by a young deer found on the site, also squirrels, crows, ducks and woodpeckers were spotted.

On the butterfly garden, cabbage white butterflies Pieris rapae, wool carder bees Anthidium manicatum, western leafcutter bee Megachile perihirta, honey bees mostly male drones Apis, yellow faced bumblebees Bombus vosnesenskii and mixed bumblebees Bombus mixtus were spotted according to “Common pollinators of British Columbia visual identification guide”. It was noticed that the composition of pollinators in a suburb area neighboring the island is highly different.

 

Questions:

  • Abundance of some pollinators species were highly outnumbered in the garden and their composition (richness) is very different from the one found in front yard gardens in the Suburbs, could urbanization gradient effect pollinator species composition?
  • Which other effects could have impact on the population of pollinators in the study area (humidity, temperature, shading by human created structures by the site?
  • What are the factors affecting the plant community composition on both sides of the river pocket as the vegetation is slightly different on both sides.