Lab 2 - Sampling Plant Populations and Communities Using a Quadrat in the Grasslands

This Experiment was conducted on September 22, 2015 from, 3:40pm to 4:18pm, at Danby Woods, York University grassland area with my partner, Mohammed. The weather consisted of sunny skies and a steady temperature of 20°C. The grassland terrain mostly consisted of low leveled vegetation which was found in clusters abundant in the area. Using Random.org, a number was randomly generated from 1-20 to determine how many steps were needed to take in between each quadrat in order to eliminate the potential for bias. This was repeated 25 times, the first 13 replicates were taken West in direction, and the last 12 replicates were taken towards the East in direction. Each time the quadrat was placed on the ground a few observations were noted; i) the total abundance of plants which were manually counted one at a time, ii) total number of plant species-classified and counted manually iii) the total coverage of vegeation as well as total coverage of grasses which was approximated by the eye and relativity.

本实验于2015年9月22日15:40至16:18，与搭档穆罕默德（Mohammed）在约克大学丹比伍兹（Danby Woods）草原区域开展。当日天气晴朗，气温稳定维持在20℃。该草原区域以低矮丛生植被为主要覆盖类型，此类植被在区域内呈簇状广泛分布。我们借助Random.org平台生成1至20的随机数，以确定相邻样方（quadrat）之间的步行步数，以此规避采样偏差风险。该采样流程共重复25次，其中前13次沿正西方向开展，后12次沿正东方向开展。每次将样方放置于地面后，均记录以下观测数据：i）逐一手动计数的植物总丰度；ii）经分类并手动计数的植物物种总数；iii）植被总盖度，以及通过目视及相对估测得到的草本植物总盖度。