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Data Collection

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Hypothesis:  Species of tree that is more abundant in the area will have a specific pattern of distribution throughout. I predict that more than one specie is dominant in the area and hence will have same distribution pattern.

I have gathered all the samples necessary to do my analysis of the hypothesis proposed. I have obtained five replicates of the three different sizes of quadrats from three different gradients at the Cranberry Flat which were done on the following days Sep 23, Sep 24, Sep 26, Sep 27, and Sep 28 2016. I didn’t have major difficulties on site other than being there longer than anticipated; I had initialled estimated only being there for about three days but it was five in total. This is a very busy park throughout the summer but fortunately since it was the end of the season the park attracted less people as fall began.

The locations chosen to sample remained the same, East of the parking lot, Middle of the and close to river bank. These spots were picked because they have lots of trees and vegetation to sample, also they are not really in the way where I would be interrupting any visitor; except the middle section of the park where a lot of the shrubs are but the busy season was over.

The weather wasn’t too bad a few days in the averaged about 13 degrees Celsius and last two were much warmer about 16 degrees Celsius just needed to have enough layers as the day could get windy. I executed my strategy as planned on site, it wasn’t difficult at all to identify the trees since there isn’t a great variety of species out there, which made my work go much faster when sampling, the vegetation on the ground was also easily identifiable.

A bit more time was required to do soil testing for sieve. I had labelled and bagged all my samples on site, before they were dried in the oven I did the hand test to identify texture after they were dried I proceeded to do my analysis to identify the grains as these were crushed and passed through the mesh.

As I began to spend more time on the location I started to see trends and began to understand more about the site.

Post 9: Field Research Reflections

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Create a final blog post that reflects on your field research. You both designed a field experiment and then carried it out. Did you have any issues with the implementation or have to make any changes to your design? Has engaging in the practice of ecology altered your appreciation for how ecological theory is developed?

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Post 8: Tables and Graphs

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Create a blog post discussing your table or graph. Did you have any difficulties organizing, aggregating or summarizing your data? Was the outcome as you expected? Did your data reveal anything unexpected or give you any ideas for further exploration?

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Post 7: Theoretical Perspectives

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Create a blog post where you briefly discuss the theoretical basis of your research project. What ecological processes might your hypothesis touch on? For example, in the buttercup sampling videos, Dr. Baldwin’s research is concerned primarily with reproductive (and evolutionary) fitness, but also relates to pollination. What ideas underpin your research? When you submit a research article for publication, you need to provide several keywords that summarize what your research is about. For example, a paper published from the research described in the wetland sampling videos included depressional wetlands, disturbance gradient, functional groups, and livestock grazing as keywords. Please list three keywords that you could use to describe your research project.

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Post 6: Data Collection

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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?

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Post 5: Design Reflections

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  1. Create a blog post to discuss the collection of the initial data in Module 3. Did you have any difficulties in implementing your sampling strategy? If yes, what were these difficulties? Was the data that you collected surprising in any way? Do you plan to continue to collect data using the same technique, or do you need to modify your approach? If you will modify your approach, explain briefly how you think your modification will improve your research.
  2. Read some of the blogs done by other students in this course and look over the hypotheses that they are investigating. Please offer constructive criticism of one other student’s hypothesis. Post this feedback as a comment on their blog. Topics to consider for feedback include: is the prediction clear and falsifiable, are the pieces and patterns under investigation clearly stated, do the predictor and response variables seem easily measurable in a field setting, and are there any potentially confounding variables that the investigator should be concerned about.

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Post 4: Sampling Strategies

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Create a blog post describing the results of the three sampling strategies you used in the virtual forest tutorial. Which technique had the fastest estimated sampling time? Compare the percentage error of the different strategies for the two most common and two rarest species. Did the accuracy change with species abundance? Was one sampling strategy more accurate than another?

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Post 3: Ongoing Field Observations

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Create a blog post to document your ongoing field observations. Supplement your blog entry with scanned or uploaded examples from you field journal. Specific points you need to cover are:

  1. Identify the organism or biological attribute that you plan to study.
  2. Use your field journal to document observations of your organism or biological attribute along an environmental gradient. Choose at least three locations along the gradient and observe and record any changes in the distribution, abundance, or character of your object of study.
  3. Think about underlying processes that may cause any patterns that you have observed. Postulate one hypothesis and make one formal prediction based on that hypothesis. Your hypothesis may include the environmental gradient; however, if you come up with a hypothesis that you want to pursue within one part of the gradient or one site, that is acceptable as well.
  4. Based on your hypothesis and prediction, list one potential response variable and one potential explanatory variable and whether they would be categorical or continuous. Use the experimental design tutorial to help you with this.

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Post 2: Sources of Scientific Information

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Your second post will concern sources of scientific information. Find one source of ecological information. It can be online, from the library, or from a book on your shelf. Based on what you have learned in the “How to evaluate sources of scientific information tutorial”, create a post in which you a) say what the source is (and/or link to it), b) classify it into one of the four types of information discussed in the tutorial, and c) provide documentation to support your classification.

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Post 1: Observations

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Your initial post will describe the area that you have selected to observe. Give a brief physical description of the study area. Include its approximate size and location, and a general picture of its topography (i.e., canyon, flat, rolling hills, mountain slope, river bottom, etc.), vegetation (this can be very coarse, for example forested, grassland, wetland, city street with ornamental trees and shrubs, etc.), and designation, if any (i.e., Provincial or City park, golf course, etc.). Also note, when and at what time you visited the site and give an indication of weather and seasonality. Think about potential subjects that you might want to study for your research project. Based on your observations, list three questions that are interesting or striking and could form the subject of your research project. Support the descriptions above with images from your field journal (if you’re using paper and pen, scan your pages; if you’re using digital technology, save your files and submit those).

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