Lab 4 - Experimental Design - The Abundance of Insects can be affected by the Condition and Size of Maple Trees

This experiment consisted of collecting data for two different days, one week apart. The first day was October 13, 2015 from, 2:57pm to 5:05pm and the weather consisted of 15°C with cloudy skies. The second day was October 20, 2015 from, 2:47pm to 4:53pm and the weather for this day consisted of 17°C with cloudy skies followed with a light drizzle of rain. The experiment took place at Danby Woods, York University in the woodlot area to test if the condition and size of a Maple tree can affect the abundance of insects in close proximity to the tree. Daniel, Markian, Bonnie, and Muhammad performed both days of the experiment. The woodlot terrain during the experiment consisted of yellow and orange leaves scattered everywhere around the ground with berries present. Few leaves were still present on the trees. During the two days of the experiment there were a total of 100 replicates noted. For each replicate a random Maple tree was selected. Once selected, the diameter of the tree was measured; ten inches or lower was considered as a small tree and anything above ten inches was considered to be a large tree. The condition of the tree was also noted, if the tree was uprooted and decomposing it was said to be dead, if it was still attached to the ground and had leaves present then it was considered to be alive. Once the size and condition of the tree were determined a quadrat was placed in close proximity to the base of the tree and in a 60 second interval all of the individual insects were manually counted inside the quadrat.