Field observations of insect abundnce and diversity in different vegetation cover at York University

On Friday, October 3, students from York University located two outdoor study sites on the east end of the Keele campus to compare differences in insect species abundance and diversity in different vegetation sites. The temperature was approximately 24 degrees Celsius; however, the weather was not ideal for this type of study, since there was decreased irradiance due to cloud cover, windy conditions and rain. A group of four students (Cait Carew, Lilach Halevi, Nitharsija Srikathan, Shervin Tohidi) randomly placed a quadrat within the forest boundaries and proceeded to identify and count all the visible insect species in the quadrat. Debris (leaves and branches) was carefully examined and subsequently removed from the quadrat to aid in finding insect individuals. Once the entire forest floor within the quadrat had been observed, the quadrat was placed in a random direction, approximately 4 metres away. The process was repeated until five spots had been surveyed. The students then took the quadrat to the grassland and randomly placed it within the grassland boundaries. Similar to the forest, lose debris was carefully removed, however, thick clumps of grass made it difficult to observe insects as well. To combat this, students pushed the grass to one side in order to observe the base of the blades of grass where they emerged from the ground. The number of insect individuals and the number of different taxa were counted until the entire interior of the quadrat had been surveyed. The quadrat was then placed approximately 4 metres away in a random direction and the process was repeated until five grassland spots were sampled.