Field experiment: Does abundance differ in mowed vs. un-mowed grassland and does pan colour influence abundance?

The data was collected on Thursday October 15, 2015 at 3:00-4:20 p.m and on October 22 at 3:07-4:27 p.m. The location of the study was at Danby grasslands at York University. The mowed and un-mowed areas of the grassland were tested for abundance of insects using pans of various colors, transects, strainer, tweezers, and soapy water. The sample size for mowed and un-mowed grassland was 24 pans. Data was collected by Stephanie, Alexander, Vivian, and Amandeep. A transect was randomly placed in the mowed and un-mowed area of the grassland. Three different coloured pans (yellow, white, blue) were placed along the transect 1 m apart in that order. The total length of the transect tape was 11 m for all four trials. There were two transects used for day 1 and two for day 2, with one at each site. Soapy water was added to each pan to capture insects. After duration of 1 hour and 20 minutes the number of insects in each pan was counted using a strainer and tweezers. The weather on day 1 and 2 was 16 degrees Celsius. It was cloudy with wind speed of 56 km/h on day 1 and was sunny with wind speed of 30 km/h on day 2. It was raining on day 1 when we ended the study because we did not want rain water to flood the pans while losing the insects captured. This study lasted only 1 hour and 20 minutes as a result. The same duration was used for the rest of the trials to maintain consistency. There were a few scattered trees in the un-mowed grassland, and almost none in mowed. There were lots of leaves on the ground. Common plants in the grassland were milkweed, golden rod, purple aster, white aster, common thistle. The mowed and un-mowed had the same plants but differed in height and density. The purpose of collecting this data set was to test whether there is a difference in abundance between mowed and un-mowed grassland, and if a certain coloured pan attracted more insects.