Ecology Lab 4-Own Experiment Dataset

Group members: Harshvir Hehar, Amrutha Balamurgan, Olivia Kazmierczak, Adilah Ismail. This study took place at the Grasslands in York University. There was a lot of grass, plants, and leaves in the Grasslands. However due to the cold temperatures a lot of the species were dying. This experiment took place on a span of two days. The data was collected on Thursday, October 15, 2015 and Thursday, October 22, 2015. 80 White Aster species were observed the first day and 58 were observed on the second day. On October 15 the temperature was 10 but it was really windy and it was raining quite a lot. It was quite cold and gloomy outside. On October 22 the temperature was 15 and it was still cold but it was sunny out. Due to the cold temperatures outside the White Aster species that we were observing were dying out. Also due to the cold temperatures our abundance was quite low as all the other species in the Grasslands were also dying. The sampling size of this study is 138 White Aster flowers. Our goal was to collect data on 80 White Aster species but we managed to do 138. This data was collected by setting out 1m by 1m quadrats randomly in the Grasslands but selecting for places where the species were found. We mostly sampled in areas with not so tall grass. All the White Aster species that were in the quadrat were counted. Some of the places where we had set up the quadrats had high grass abundance some had less but in general there was a lot of grass. The purpose of this data was to collect data on the White Aster species that were found in the Grasslands. We measured the number of leaves by counting them with our fingers. We counted all the leaves that were greater than 3 centimeters. We also measured the height of the plant in centimeters by using a transect and abundance was estimated. The abundance was estimated by looking at a small sample and multiplying that by the total area. This study was conducted to see if there is a correlation between the plant height and the number of leaves that a plant has relating to its density (abundance).