The Effect of Light and Abundance of Buckthorn on Native Samplings

This experiment was executed at York University's woodlot on Ocober 14, 2015 from 3:00 - 5:00 P.M and October 21, 2015 from 3:00 - 4:20. A group of 5 students, Ratiba, Farka,Reena, Olivia and Huda were gathering the Data. The temperature for both days were around 12 degrees and 10 degrees celcius respectively. In general, on both days the wind was cold and it was breezy. The data was collected by the following means: the group began at the edge of the woodlot and walked inward (north of the woodlot) along a 100 meter transect towards the centre. The students set up a station at every 5 meters of the transect. 0m on the transect marking station 0, 5m on the transect marking station 1, 10m on the transect marking station 2 and so on.A 2x2 meter measuring tape was used to make the quadrats.At every station, 6 quadrats were set up. Three quadrats were made to the right of the transect tape and another 3 quadrats were made on the left side of the transect for a total of 6 quadrats at each station. There was a total of 20 stations(one station every 5m of the 100m transect), and a total of 120 quadrats.The abundance of the native sapling, Acer, and the adundance of Buckthorn plant in each quadrat were recorded by visually counting. Also, the percentage of light reaching the ground at each quadrat was recorded. To measure the amount of light the students used their fingures to form a quadrat-like square and estimate the amount of light they see through that square. All the data points collected were contiuous. On the fist day, the students walked through 0 - 50 meters of the transect and on the second day, they walked through 55 - 100 meters.The purpose of this experiment is to examine the effects of light and abundance of Buckthorn on the abundanc of native saplings.