Effects of Anthropocene on Insect Abundance

The experiment was conducted over 2 days; October 13, 2015 and October 20, 2015 in the Danby Grasslands on the York University Campus between 2:50pm-4:50pm in collaboration with Naduni, Bryson and Stanley. On the day of October 13, 2015, the experiment was conducted on a windy, cloudy day with overcast and an initial external temperature of 15°C which then decreased to 11°C by the time we finished collecting data for the day. On the day of October 20, 2015, the experiment was conducted on a cloudy, overcast day with a little rain and an external temperature of 12°C.

The overall general purpose of this experiment is to integrate the various sampling techniques previously learned to design a new field experiment and also develop collaboration skills in collecting data. The specific purpose of this experiment is to further understand what effects the Anthropocene has on insect abundance by studying how distance from human disturbances affect insect abundance and how various levels of garbage abundance affects insect abundance. It is hypothesized that the closer an environment is to human disturbances, the lower the insect abundance will be. It is also hypothesized that the more garbage there is located in an environment, the lower the insect abundance will be.

On October 13, 2015, I conducted my study by first starting out on the edge of the Danby Grasslands closest to the houses on the Keele Campus. I then laid out my 30 meter line transect from the edge of the Grasslands straight out in the direction towards the center of the Danby Grasslands. I divided the 30 meters into 6 separate, five meter intervals. Interval 1 was 0-5 meters, Interval 2 was 5-10 meters, Interval 3 was 10-15 meters, Interval 4 was 15-20 meters, Interval 5 was 20-25 meters and Interval 6 was 25-30 meters.

For each interval along the line transect, we used a sweep net and swept from side to side in the grass, walking back and forth along each 5 meter interval as many times as possible within a time limit of 2 minutes. After the 2 minutes, we counted how many insects we caught in the sweep net and then let the insects free. For each respective interval, we also walked along each interval and counted how many pieces of garbage was present in the immediate vicinity of the line transect. We repeated this process of capturing insects in a 2 minute timeframe and counting the pieces of garbage such that we gathered data for all 6 intervals. After collecting data for all 6 intervals; we rewound the line transect, went back to the edge of the Danby Grasslands near the homes and took 5 steps to the right along the edge from where we previously laid out the transect and at this point we laid out the transect towards the middle of the grasslands and repeated the process of collecting data for each interval. We repeated this process of collecting data, rewinding and laying the transect out, a total of 6 times on the first day of data collection. On the first day of data collection we collected data for the first 36 replicates.

On October 20 we followed the exact same process of data tabulation, but this time we started on the edge of the Danby Grasslands nearest to the road on the Keele Campus and instead of taking 5 steps to the right, we took 5 steps to the left when laying out the transect again. We repeated this process of collecting data, rewinding and laying the transect out, a total of 6 more times on the second day of data collection and we collected data on replicates 37-72.

In Interval 1, the average insect abundance was 2.8 and average amount of garbage was 10.4. In Interval 2, the average insect abundance was 3.1 and average amount of garbage was 3.7. In Interval 3, the average insect abundance was 4.9 and average amount of garbage was 2.0. In Interval 4, the average insect abundance was 4.6 and average amount of garbage was 0.6. In Interval 5, the average insect abundance was 4.9 and average amount of garbage was 0.1. In Interval 6, the average insect abundance was 4.1 and average amount of garbage was 0.2.