The Affects of Competition for Resources and Sunlight Exposure on Plantago major (Common Plantain) Leaf Size At York University

The dataset was collected on two separate days, it was collected on Monday October 19th, 2015. and Monday October 26th, 2015. The sampling took place at Danby grassland at York University in Toronto, Ontario between 3:00- 5:00pm. The weather conditions of the location on both days was windy and sunny and the temperature ranged from 10-14 degrees celsius. The experiment was done in groups of 4 which included Aziza, Sahar, Paula and Shahana. The purpose of this experiment was to observe if competition and distribution of resources, among plants affects plant size by using different sampling techniques. This experiment consisted of recording average leaf size, crowding, number of Common Plantain plants, total number of leaves, number of leaves in sunlight and sunlight percentage. The plant was identified by its oval leaves and a quadrat was used to sample the distribution of Common Plantain plants. The quadrat was placed randomly on the grassland 70 times on the first day and another 70 times on the second day. A total of 140 replicates was collected on both days. For each plant, the size of the leaves was determined by measuring from where the stem attaches to the leaf of the plant to the tip of the leaf. This was measured in inches using a measuring tape and the leaf sizes were averaged for each plant being observed. Crowdedness of the plant was determined by observing the amount of other plant species surrounding the Common Plantain. A scale was used which was 0=no other plant species, 1=very little plant species, 2= quite a lot of other plant species and 3= lots of other plant species. Sunlight exposure which was a percentage was determined for each individual plant, by dividing the number of leaves exposed to sunlight by the total number of leaves. This was then multiplied by 100 to get a percentage. There was not a large abundance of Common Plantain plants at the location which is why for some of the replicates there was no data. Low temperatures could have played a role which limited the abundance of Common Plantain in the grassland.

本数据集分两次采集，分别为2015年10月19日（周一）与2015年10月26日（周一）。采样地点位于加拿大安大略省多伦多市约克大学的丹比草地，采样时段为每日下午3:00至5:00。两日采样期间当地天气均为晴朗多风，气温区间为10至14摄氏度。本次实验由4人小组完成，成员包括Aziza、Sahar、Paula与Shahana。本实验旨在通过不同采样技术，探究植物间的资源竞争与分布格局是否会影响植株个体大小。实验记录的指标包括平均叶长、植株拥挤度、普通车前草（Common Plantain）的植株数量、总叶片数、受光叶片数以及受光百分比。实验以卵形叶片为识别特征确定普通车前草植株，并采用样方（quadrat）对其分布进行采样。首日在草地上随机布设样方70次，次日同样布设70次，两日累计完成140次重复采样。针对每株植株，通过测量从茎与叶片连接处至叶尖的长度计算叶长，以英寸为单位使用卷尺进行测量，并对单株所有叶片的测量结果取平均得到平均叶长。植株拥挤度通过观察普通车前草周围其他植物物种的数量进行评级，评级标准为：0=无其他植物物种，1=仅存在极少量其他植物，2=存在较多其他植物，3=存在大量其他植物。单株植物的受光百分比通过受光叶片数除以总叶片数后乘以100得到。由于该区域普通车前草种群丰度较低，部分重复采样未获得有效数据。此外，低温可能是限制该草地普通车前草种群规模的因素之一。