Impacts of Distance from a Body of Water on Insect Abundance and Plant Species Richness

Insect abundance and plant richness were measured at the grassland east of Stong pond (43.770960, -79.506432) at York University. The experiment was conducted on October 14, 2014 on a clear, sunny day with a temperature of 22°C and on October 21, 2014 which was a colder, rainy day with a temperature of 7°C and an overcast sky. The researchers on this team were Reema Patel, Melanie de Sousa, Gurnit Atwal and Silvio Pacciti. A transect tape (~30m, or 100 inches) was laid out from the edge of the grassland going inwards towards the pond. Since one tape was not sufficient, two transect tapes were used and the total length was summed. The length from the grassland to the pond was measured to be about 60 metres, and this length was divided into 3 equal sections (~20m each), classified as closest to the pond, intermediate distance, and furthest from the pond. A sweep net that was 15 inches in diameter with a nylon mesh was used to sweep along a straight line along the 3 distances with the transect tape as a guide. At the end of each 20m mark, the sweeper would count how many insects were collected inside the net. A total of 20 sweeps were made in different portions of the grassland (10 each day), these sections were determined by moving from a starting point randomly selected, to 5m to the left. For each replicate, the transect was laid out again so the sweeper would know how far to sweep and when to tally the amount of insects collected. The insects were released one by one as each one was accounted for. For each sweep that was made, a 1m by 1m quadrat was laid out at the beginning and end of each section to measure plant richness. The measurements obtained from both the beginning and end of each section were averaged and recorded.