BIOL3250_surveydata_Taylor_Creek

This data was collected near the Lumsden Ave. entrance to Taylor Creek Trail in East York, Toronto. The area being surveyed was 5 or more metres away from the trail path. The area was then broken into twenty, roughly 1x1 metre, quadrats which were arranged linearly and going into the shrubbery, perpendicular to the beaten trail path. Within each quadrat the species richness was measured. This means that the number of species present was counted. Species were identified using the smartphone app called “Picture This” and also the book, Newcomb’s Wildflower Field Guide. The species frequency was also measured by estimating the percent cover provided by each species that were present. And finally ground cover was measured by approximating what percentage of the ground was covered by vegetation in general. Our ground cover values are not the sum of species cover as one would assume. This is because with species cover, we’re including vertical cover, but with ground cover, we’re including only cover along the floor. This pilot was conducted over a period of two days in two independent plots but close-in-proximity to each other. The first day’s recordings are labelled Plot A. The second day’s recordings, in a slightly different but still regionally close location are under Plot B. Next to each “Plot” (second column) there are “Quadrat” numbers (third column). Dataset columns: - Date – Date on which pilot was conducted - Plot – Which of the two possible test sites the specific quadrats being measured were present in. - Quadrat – 1x1 metre square segments of the plot - Researcher – Person taking measurements - Location – Where the plots were located - Species_richness – Number of species were present in each plot - Species_cover – Percent cover per species - Total_cover – Percentage of quadrat floor that is covered by vegetation