Techniques Lab Animals : Birds, Abundance and Diversity

We as a group of four students conducted an experiment on the abundance and diversity of bird species and count the number of birds in different areas of natural and urban areas. We used binoculars, transects and dichotomous keys to study the number of different bird species found in every location. We used transects to measure the distance of the areas where the birds were found. About 8 transects were used at a particular date of October 13 and about 10 transects were used on October 20th, 2015 in both areas of urbanised and Natural areas of Woodlot and Grassland. Transects were placed in different areas of Urbanised and Grassland habitats of York University. Each transect was observed at a 120 metre distance. The number of bird species found on every transect were observed by binoculars or human eye. Later, the birds found were looked into the dichotomous key and correct species were noted. We also observed whether food, garbage or people affect the abundance of bird species in urbanised areas whether greater abundance is due to all these aspects, or birds are less adapted to people in urbanised areas and have lesser abundance in urbanised areas.

本研究由四名学生组成的团队开展，旨在探究鸟类物种的丰富度与多样性，并统计自然与城市不同区域内的鸟类物种数量。我们采用双筒望远镜（binoculars）、样带（transect）与二歧分类检索表（dichotomous keys），对各观测点位的鸟类展开调查。其中通过样带法测定鸟类分布区域的空间距离参数。2015年10月13日，在城市化区域与林地、草地自然区域共布设约8条样带；同年10月20日，在上述两类区域共布设约10条样带。所有样带均设置于约克大学的城市化生境与草地生境中，每条样带的观测范围为120米。研究人员通过双筒望远镜或肉眼对每条样带内的鸟类物种数量进行观测，随后借助二歧分类检索表对观测到的鸟类进行物种鉴定，并记录其准确分类信息。此外，本研究还探究了食物、垃圾与人类活动是否会对城市区域的鸟类丰富度产生影响：即城市鸟类的丰富度更高是否源于上述因素，抑或是城市鸟类对人类的适应性较弱，导致其在城市区域的丰富度更低。