The Diversity and Abundance of Insect Species in a Grassland, and a Woodlot

Group Members: Loyal Tran, Anisa Amin, James Quach, Iiman Darman The group was split into two to save time; dataset 1 was collected with Loyal Tran. This data was collected at the Danby woodlot, and the grassland next to it on September 30, 2015 from 15:15 to 16:10. A 1m x 1m quadrat was used to collect 20 random samples, 10 from the grassland, and the other 10 from the woodlot. It was a sunny day with a few clouds in the sky. The weather was 16 degrees Celsius with a cool breeze. The ground was cool and damp as it was raining the day before. Insect abundance and number of RTU's was determined in each sample. Insect abundance is defined as the total number of insects in a quadrat and was determined by counting the total number of insects seen within 1 minute of observation. Each sample was observed for 1 minute. The environment in the quadrat was disturbed (i.e. moving plants, scattering the soil, etc.) as to see the insects that may have been hidden in the soil or by the surrounding vegetation. This allowed for us to observe many more individuals and RTU's. Number of RTU's is an estimate of the number of species and is defined as the number of different recognizable taxonomic units. This was determined by counting individuals with different physical characteristics. Any individuals that had major differences in physical characteristics were counted thought of as 2 RTU's. This data may be prone to error as visual observation is imprecise. Insects may have been camouflaged, too small, or hidden under surrounding vegetation or the soil. All of these characteristics may have affected the precision of this data.

小组成员：Loyal Tran、Anisa Amin、James Quach、Iiman Darman。为提升工作效率，小组分为两组开展工作；数据集1由Loyal Tran负责采集。该数据集的采集地点为丹比林地（Danby woodlot）及其毗邻的草原，采集时间为2015年9月30日15:15至16:10。本次采样采用1m×1m样方（quadrat），共获取20份随机样本，其中10份取自草原样地，剩余10份取自林地样地。当日天气晴好，偶有云团覆盖，气温16摄氏度，伴有微风；受前一日降雨影响，地表湿润凉爽。每份样本均开展1分钟的定点观测，统计昆虫丰度（insect abundance）与可识别分类单元（recognizable taxonomic units, RTU）的数量。其中，昆虫丰度定义为单一样方内的昆虫总个体数，通过1分钟观测期内所见昆虫的总数量计数得到；可识别分类单元数量用于估算物种丰富度，其定义为具有显著形态差异的类群数，即凡形态特征存在明显差异的个体均被计为不同的RTU。为暴露藏匿于土壤或周边植被中的昆虫，研究人员会对样方内的生境进行扰动（如移开植株、翻动土壤等），以此提升观测到的昆虫个体与RTU数量。需注意的是，本数据存在潜在误差：目视观测本身精度有限，昆虫可能存在拟态、体型过小，或藏匿于植被或土壤中，上述因素均可能影响数据的观测精度。