Crowdedness and Exposure to Sunlight Affecting the Size of Leaves of Plantago major Plants at York University

Data was collected on two seperate days, Monday October 19th, 2015 and Monday October 26th, 2015 between 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm at the Danby grasslands of York University, Keele campus. The site conditions were cool and windy on both collection days, ranging from 10 - 15 degrees celsius. The group collecting the data consisted of Aziza, Paula, Sahar and Shahana. The purpose of this experiment was to test the influence of competition and distribution of resources on plants in the grasslands by applying various sampling techniques. The experiment consisted of variables such as crowdedness, average leaf size, total number of leaves, the number of leaves exposed to sunlight and sunlight percentage. This tested whether the relationship between crowdedness and exposure to sunlight affected the size of leaves of the Plantago major plants, which were identified by their oval shaped leaves. Quadrats were utilized to sample the distribution of the plants for each replicate, which was randomly placed by a random number generator. A total of 70 replicates were used to sample the species of Plantago major plants each day, providing a total of 140 replicates for both collection days. For each individual plant being examined, crowdedness was assessed by observing the density of other plant species around the Plantago major plants. Sunlight exposure was measured by percentage, where for each individual plant, the number of leaves exposed to sunlight was divided by the number of total leaves that belonged to the plant. The size of the leaves were determined by measuring from the stem of the plant, to the tip of the leaf. The measurements of leaf sizes were averaged for each individual plant. The length of the leaves were measured by using a measuring tape. Low temperatures could have been a factor in the limited abundance of Plantago major plants in the grasslands.