Grassland Dataset 1-BIOL 2050 LAB 2

Description/Method:

The data for “Grassland Dataset 1” was collected on Friday September 26 2014 from 15:00-15:45, in a grassland area at the Keele Campus of York University in Toronto, Ontario. Weather conditions included clear, sunny skies with no prevalent cloud cover, little to no wind and a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. A 2x2m quadrat was placed in a random location in the grassland area by the researcher. Variables to be collected in this dataset included: abundance of plants, number of individual species, vegetation cover (%) and grass cover (%). Each quadrat was visually divided into quarters by the researcher in order to count the abundance of plants (the total number of individuals) and multiplied by 4 to obtain the abundance of plants in the entire quadrat area. Individuals of grass species were not taken into account to avoid an increased likelihood in miscounting errors. All remaining data was collected by observation and estimation. The quadrat was relocated to 24 subsequent unique random locations in the grassland area, in order to obtain a total of 25 samples of the experiment. The abundance of plants and number of unique species were expected have relatively constant numbers respectively, due to the high density of vegetation and grass in the grassland area. Researchers also expected the abundance of plants and the vegetation cover to have a direct relationship. Fellow York University biology student, Kristina Gulli was my research partner in the conduction of this experiment. Fellow group members also included: Yu Xiao and Naz Naji.