Affect of Sunlight and Soil Moisture on Plant Abundance and Surrounding Ecosystems

This experiment was conducted over the span of two days: October 13th 2015 and October 20th 2015 in the Danby Woodlot and the Danby Grassland at York University Keele Campus from approximately: 2:50-5:00pm both days, with group members Houra, Alexandera and Kathy. The weather was approximately 18°C on both days. On the first day the experiment was conducted it was severely overcast with a lot of cloud coverage while on the second day there was some cloud coverage and light showers towards the end. All the grassland replicates were collected by Houra and I, in order to keep data/measurements reliable and consistent. The overall purpose of this lab was to develop collaboration skills in field ecology & data collection, but specifically collect data to find a relationship between sunlight and soil moisture and how they affect plant abundance (and ecosystems) respectively. A total of 160 trials were to conducted over the span of two separate days, 80 in both the grassland and woodlot. A random number generator app was used to ensure random sampling. A random number of steps were taken in a a specific direction and the 1x1 meter quadrat was placed on the ground. The total number of plants were recorded, along with the moisture levels of the soil, and exposure of sunlight. The moisture of the soil was tested with a paper towel wrapped around a popsicle stick and being pushed into the ground, and was given a number from 0-2. The amount of sunlight the quadrat was being exposed to was given a number from 0-3. Both size classes are further explained in the meta data. This procedure was repeated 79 more times for both the grasslands and woodlot, 40 replicates for grassland and woodlot collected in each field day. It was concluded that due to the poor weather conditions cloudy and rainy) the exposure to sunlight may not have been accurately depicted.