Ecology BIOL 2050 - Lab 5 & 6 Insect diversity near pond environment

The lab experiment consisted of a group of five members that setup pan traps over two trials. One trial was done per week for two weeks at the York University pond area. The experiment location was primarily non-mowed grassland with a small patch of mowed grassland between 20 and 25 meters from the pond. The temperature for trial 1 and 2 were 13 and 10 degrees Celsius respectively. The equipments used included 36 pan traps, 12 of each colour including white, yellow, and blue, two transect tapes, and soapy water. The group travelled to the east side of the pond and marked the edge of the pond as 0 meters. A transect of 25 meters were measured east of the starting location towards the University campus. A set of traps were placed starting at 0 meters and subsequent traps were set every 5 meters from the starting position. The traps were divided into two of each colour per transect, with a total of six traps per location. A second lateral transect of 5 meters were measured that bisected the original transect at each trap location. The six traps were randomly chosen and placed along the 5 meters lateral transect 1 meter apart from each other. There were a total of six transect trap locations with six traps each at 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 meters from the pond. The total number of different plant species were counted along each 5 meters lateral transect, the species was not identified it was only acknowledged that they were different species. The traps were left to stand for one hour and thirty minutes after which the group counted the insects that were captured starting from the earliest traps set. Although this experiment was focused on insects, all invertebrates that were captured by the traps were also included in the.