Category: Nancy Elliot

Create a blog post describing your field data collection activities. How many replicates did you sample? Have you had any problems implementing your sampling design? Have you noticed any ancillary patterns that make you reflect on your hypothesis?

I have implemented three data collection activities to recognize the healthiness of ecology depending on humans intervention rate.

First observation  was collecting the ratio of fresh vegetation per area. Fresh vegetation proportion was measured by the colour, green. In a quadrat (10cm*10cm), if the area is composed of greens more than 50%, it would be recorded as 1. If the area observed had green vegetation less than 50% of the area,  it was measured as 0. Each landscape, ornamental garden, ornamental steps, and preserved hill side, was measured 8 quadrats and it was measured with 5 replication. Since the area wasn’t that big, the quadrat selection might overlap easily. I had to use systematic sampling techniques. The area was divided into 5 area and quadrates were selected in subdivided area per visit. After one visit the other area was selected for data collection. In this way, overlapping of quadrat was avoided.

Second observation was collecting the number of vegetation species observed per quadrat (10cm*10cm). As above the area was divided in to five and subdivided area was observed each visit. 8 quadrats were observed per visit and was measured with 5 replication.

As going through both experiment 1 and 2, there should have been consideration of the amount of water the land received and type of soil the vegetation grows. They both affect highly in vegetation growth. The hill nearby the church isn’t actively managed by someone, the amount of water the landscape receives and type of soil they grow on might be different. On the next observation, observing this point is another important criteria.

The third observation was measuring the bird activity rate depending on landscape. Bird activity should be considered morning, afternoon and evening. The bird activity rate changes during the time of the day. Therefore, each visit per day must be three times; morning (9am-9:30am), afternoon and evening, with 10 replication. Each observation lasted 10 minutes and the number of birds flying around the landscape was measured.

Background: I have decided to change my hypothesis and organism I am studying to make my sampling simpler. I have observed that deer fern are more present in some areas of Burnaby Mountain covered in forested than areas than areas that don’t have trees. To keep this simple I will categorize a sampling area as either shaded having most of the sky covered by the tree canopy, partially shaded having part of the sky shaded and non-shaded. These three zones represent differing levels of sunlight that is able to reach the ferns on the ground. My new hypothesis is that the deer ferns are more successful under lower lighting levels. As such my prediction is that I will find a greater abundance of ferns in shaded and partially shaded areas than non-shaded areas.

I chose three sites to conduct my sampling each had a non-shaded area, partially shaded area and shaded area. At each area I recorded 10 samples. For a total of 90 replicates. My sampling unit was 1m2. Which I had planned to measure the ground cover of the ferns; however, I found that most ferns covered the whole area. So instead of trying to measure ground cover I just recorded either the area being mostly covered by deer fern, grass, bare ground, tree or thorns. Of my three sites one of the non-shaded areas is managed to some extent because a gas line is below so they clear cut the area every few months. I think this has had the effect of reducing the amount of ferns that can grow because they are in competition with other plants that perform better under higher lighting conditions. The partially shaded zones had the most ferns with 15, shaded at 5 and no-shade at 6. This is what I had initially observed; however, I had expected to find more ferns in the shaded areas. I observed in the shaded areas underneath the trees (evergreens) that very little grew, the ground was mostly covered in pine needles. In the partially shaded areas the trees were mostly thin in diameter deciduous trees. One of the non-shaded areas had a high number of ferns which was the opposite of the other 2 non shaded areas that had only 1 fern each.