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Final Reflections

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My research project on bees and their preference towards different flower colours was both fun and difficult at times. I enjoyed taking notes of my observations and drawing in my field journal, as well as getting to know the names of different flower species.

I did not have any significant problems with implementing my research design. However, I did find it quite challenging to get through the research articles for the annotated bibliography section of the research project. This is due to the fact that I have never taken an ecology course before this one, and the last biology course I took was 3 years ago.  It was quite time consuming to get through the ecology jargon since my background is in health sciences, which revolves around literature on people and diseases.

This research project has helped me become more observant of my surroundings when I am walking outdoors. I notice the interactions between plants and society a little more. Lastly, I have a greater appreciation for ecology and the significant role bees play in the ecosystem.

Blog Post 7: Theoretical Perspective

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I have spent some time considering the theoretical basis of my research project and I have also thought about my theoretical perspective. For my final project, I am hoping to determine whether or not the amount of shelter provided has any correlation to the amounts of birds within that area. More specifically, I have predicted that I would find the greatest number of birds using an area that had the most shelter compared to areas with little shelter or areas with intermediate amounts of shelter. The ecological processes that my hypothesis focuses on will be urbanization, deforestation and adaptation. Since both urbanization and deforestation are becoming a big process of the world we live in, I’m curious to see if in fact the lack of shelter affects the amounts of birds I will see. From the research I have been doing and articles I have been reading, it has become apparent to me that my prediction is in fact highly likely. Lots of species rely on the forest habitats for protection and shelter so, with these resources becoming limited the species are faced with the tough challenge of adapting and surviving. Some can adapt and other are not able to so, they either relocate or die out within that specific area.

Some keywords: Deforestation, Species richness, Habitat conversion.

 

Tables & Graphs

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I created a bar graph for small assignment 5 that represented my data on the number of bees that frequented different flower species. I choose to use a a bar graph because figures tend to present data more clearly. I did not have any problems with aggregating or summarizing my information on the graph. The only difficulty I encountered with the bar graph was formatting it online. The description ‘number of bees’ for the y axis was written vertically and I could not get it it to be horizontal. The results from the graph was as expected and supported my hypothesis, the number of bees increase around colourful flowers and decrease around white flowers.

Blog 8: Box Plot of Leaf Length

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I knew after designing the experiment that I would be creating a box plot due to the comparison between a continuous and a categorical variable. While a strip plot would also have been acceptable, the box plot easily presents several other pieces of information that are harder to incorporate in a strip plot: upper and lower quartiles, minimum, and maximum values in addition to the mean value. Therefore not only does a box plot show you the mean values and the range of data, but it also allows one to visually appreciate the variance in within each data group. As discussed in post 6, I revised my experimental design slightly to aggregate samples from nearby trees into unified sampling areas. The reason for the revision is that there was no way to guarantee the leaves that had fallen beneath a given tree were grown on that particular plant. I opted therefore to group sampled leaves into a “habitat areas” that included the sampling area and a control area.

 

Figure 1. The effects of airborne particulate pollution on premature leaf abscission were estimated based on the leaf length of dropped leaves of Prunus spp. in two areas: near a roadway and construction site with active digging (Particulate-Exposed) and approximately 70 meters East of this location (Control). Mean leaf length between Particulate-Exposed (=50.5 mm) and Control (=54.8mm) are shown in bold horizontal lines. Upper and lower bounds of the box represent the 75th and 25th quartile values, respectively. Upper and lower “whiskers” represent maximum and minimum data points, respectively. (Figure created in R Studio V1.1.414)

Blog Post 7: Theoretical Perspectives (Percy)

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The theoretical basis of my research project involves the examination of bottom-up and top-down regulation on the abundance of Orconectes propinquus (freshwater Northern Ontario Crayfish). Jochum et al (2012) examine the combined effects of nutrient availability and size structure of predatory crap populations (bottom-up and top-down forces) on the mean community body mass, abundance, species richness, and the biomass and abundance of individual taxa from the entire community regardless of trophic levels. This is a similar study in which I examine the top-down and bottom-up forces occurring in two different freshwater lakes in North Bay, Ontario. The longer the crayfish, the higher the biomass, therefore a possible result of top-down forcing of predators on a particular species of crayfish. In particular, the difference in length of the crayfish in one lake as opposed to the other may be a result of an underlying process such as bottom-up or top-down regulation. Another ecological process that may be touched on in my hypothesis is climate change. In freshwater ecosystems, increased frequency of extreme rain and flooding can affect freshwater systems by contamination of biocides and nutrients. This type of stressor may have an influence on abundance and/or productivity of the ecosystem. The many different stressors and their potential affect on abundance of crayfish species is important when trying to understand predator-prey relationships, in this case, between large/small mouth bass and crayfish.

3 keywords: bottom-up regulation, abundance, freshwater crayfish, multiple stressors

Blog 7: Theoretical Basis of Leaf Abscission Research

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My research project is based on the well-documented process of leaf abscission (dropping of leaves) in deciduous trees. This is a normal seasonal process as photosynthesizing pigments breakdown (which causes colour change in the leaves) or one that can arise when an angiosperm is experiencing stressful conditions such as drought or disease. One of the roles of leaves is to bear microscopic openings (stomata) that allow the exchange of gases and release of water vapour through the process of transpiration. This process allows waste oxygen produced during photosynthesis to be released and the evaporation of liquid water to create a difference in water pressure between the leaves and roots, which causes water to flow up xylem tissues of the trunk and to the disparate parts of the plant. My hypothesis supposes that particulate matter in the air from nearby construction excavations and a roadway might interfere with the role of stomata and that the tree might preferentially drop these “under-performing” leaves, as it does when photosynthetic pigments begin to lose their function.

Some keywords that might accompany this paper would be: Prunus, premature leaf abscission, particulate pollution, transpiration.

Blog Post 6: Data Collection – Heather Lean

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While my last post made reference to my dislike of spiders, I have to say that my most recent observations and data collection at my site were taken over by wasps. That being said I was able to get 16 samples in total between 4 shrubs and while I did not have much difficulty in implementing my design, I did realize that in some of the shrubs some parts just met the minimum for the sampling height. While the shrubs overall are of adequate size for my study (which is 4 feet) most were well over 4 feet, some parts were barely tall enough. While this would not have any significant impact on my field study, I realized that depending on the nature and source of study this should be a consideration in the future development of my field studies.

Post 6: Data Collection

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Since originally making my hypothesis and making my data collections, I have decided to revise my sampling method slightly: Since I am measuring fallen leaves, there is no way to guarantee the leaves beneath a given tree were grown on that particular plant. Giving more observation to the distribution of leaves on the ground, I shouldn’t be able to make the claim of tree origin with any confidence, so I am going to instead group sampled leaves to a “habitat area.” The aggregation of the data means that I would not be able to look for associations in the data between leaf length and individual tree. However, the integrity of the data is preserved for the purpose of comparing variance within and between and groups (ANOVA), except that there is an increased risk of a Type II error. (Which is better than a Type I error, in my opinion).

I have thus sampled trees within each of two different habitat areas (one near the construction site and roadway; the other farther away) on three separate occasions. In total, 80 leaf length samples were taken from each habitat area over the data collection period.

Theoretical Perspective

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I have been advancing my research and developing the theoretical framework of my study. For my research paper, I will focus on answering the question as to what factors influence bee pollination of flowers. I will incorporate many ideas from other articles that provide plausible answers to this question. According to the information I gathered from my partial literature review, one example of an aspect that impacts this plant-pollinator relationship is the flower’s UV reflecting colour pattern. This pattern has led to more flower visitation from honey bees compared with a UV absorbing pattern.  Other topics that I will incorporate into my research paper include the “bee avoidance” hypothesis, and the influence of floral signals, such as scent compounds.

Some keywords that I could use to describe my research project include ‘pollination ecology’, ‘plant-pollinator interaction’ and ’floral colour’. These three descriptors really outline the theoretical framework of my study, as to what aspects influence bee pollination of flowers.

Blog Post 6: Data Collection

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Throughout this module I needed to get 3 replicate samples completed. I’m collecting a total of 15 replicates (5 from initial data) and either 3 or 4 replicates per module. I haven’t had any problems with implementing my sampling design so far… I will continue to go to my point count stations in the morning when it is nice and cool and I will record the amount of times I see a bird using the area. This no longer takes into account any birds that fly by or and bird calls since they are not technically using the area. I think this will give me more accurate data. So, because of this decision, only part of my data from the first 5 initial observations I recorded is valid and, therefore, I will only be being using half of the data. I will return to all my 5 point count stations in the same order that I did the first time and I’ll continue the process of returning to these stations one at a time over multiple days… This also gives me extra time to complete other parts of this module. So, on Aug 20th I returned to my first point count station. This station is the station with no shelter, this is the lawn area station. It was 15 degrees Celsius, however, there was a layer of smoke blanketing the area. I only saw 1 bird using the area during the whole 10 minutes… I have a feeling this is due to the smoke. I don’t know how long the smoke will stick around and I’m curious if the smoke might skew my observations; however, I can’t wait forever for it to go away and I will just have to take this into account when I am analysing the data. I then returned to my second station a couple days later on Aug 22nd . It was 16 degrees and the thick layer of smoke was still glomming above. The second count station is the intermediate station with half shelter and multiple bird feeders within the area.  Even with the thick smoke I saw 3 birds use the area. The next day, Aug 23rd  ,  I went to visit the third count station. There was no smoke!!! I was a nice morning with clear skies and it was 15 degrees Celsius.  This station is the one right in the middle of the forest with lots of shelter. Here I recorded 3 birds using this station. I will visit the rest of the stations sometime throughout the next couple of days and be finished up by module 8. From the data, I have recorded I am starting to see more of what I was expecting. I did in fact more birds in areas with more shelter than in areas of low to intermediate shelter. I will be very interested when analysing my final data to see if the smoke did in fact have any real affect, but hopefully it will be gone for good now.