Effects of Density and Sunlight Exposure on Leaf Abundance

The experiment was performed in Danby Park at the Keele York university campus. The plant of interest in this case was the Goldenrod. The trials were split and were to be done on two different days. The first 20 trials were done in a fairly cloudy weather, with little direct sunlight. The following 10 trials were done on day two (one week from day one) during clear and sunny weather. With this kept in mind, in the grassland of Danby Park, a random spot where Goldenrod species were present was selected and a quadrat was placed over the area. First, the plant density (not including grass) was estimated. The grass was excluded because the focus of the experiment was on larger plants that were similar in size to the Goldenrod species. Also the grass was very abundant throughout the field that the competition of grass witth the Goldenrod was ruled out. The density within the quadrat was estimated by considering the presense of all plant types present. This estimation was to be recorded in a percentage. Next, the number of leaves on the Goldenrod plant was to be counted. If multiple Goldenrod plants were present, then an average count of leaves was to be recorded. This was done by counting all the leaves on all present plants within the quadrat and divided by the number of plants present to get an average. the average leaf count on day one was generally higher when compared to day two. Once done, the next step was to count only the leaves of the Goldenrod plant that were exposed to sunlight within the quadrat. If multiple Goldenrod plants were present this was to be averaged. On day two, the sunlight exposure was noticeably higher than day one. Once all observations were recorded, the next trial was to be done and so to pick the next spot, students were to move 1m north and 1m east, picking a new spot and repeating the steps above for a total of 30 trials.