Lab 3 Ecology.xls

Ecology
BIOL 2050 Lab 3-Insect Abundance and Diversity in Saywell's Grassland and Wood
lot- Dataset 1. 

Meta-Data 

Grassland: is
the area that is only covered by grass with no presence of trees in the Saywell
area of York
university campus. 

Wood lot: is
the area that is covered by grass and trees in the Saywell area of York university
campus. 

Quadrat: Measuring data,
each Quadrat is about 1 meter by 1 meter square device randomly thrown on to
Saywell's grassland and wood lot 10 times each after walking approximately 10
to 20 steps of total 20 times.  Data was taken for the insects that were
visually accounted for which were surrounded by the quadrat.

Abundance: Total
number of insects that appeared in the quadrat after 1 minute of it is thrown.
 Insects that were visually seen in the quadrat.

# RTUs: Numerical,
discrete data.  #= number.  RTU= Recognizable Taxonomic Unit.
 The amount of different species of insects that were accounted for inside
the quadrat.  Species was differentiated by visual estimation such as
colour, wing type, body type and sizes. 

Method, Hypothesis and Prediction 

This dataset was conducted by myself
and my group member Maryam Yazdi started at 3:30 pm in a cloudy slightly raining condition which was
started after a heavy raining.  The method of collecting the dataset was 1
meter by 1 meter quadrat was thrown on randomly selected area of Saywell's
grassland and wood lot of York
university's Keele campus and waiting 1 minute then observing visually how many
insects were in the area inside the quadrat.   The quadrat was thrown 10
times at each site for total of 20 times.  The purpose of this lab was to
study the abundance of different species in the grassland and wood lot of
Saywell in York
university campus.  Also, recognizable taxonomic units of the insects were
accounted for by visually noticing their structural differences.  Since it
was a cold rainy weather, not much insects were observed, thus the data
collected was quit low.