Week 6 & 7 - Experimental Design: Influence of Location and Plant Abundance on Insect Abundance

This experiment focuses on the effect of location and plant abundance on the number of living insects as observed by our group members who consisted of Adamo, Katherine, Katie, Ashley and I. This group design was carried out in the Danby Woodlot and Grassland regions of York University’s Keele campus over a period of two days, first instance on Tuesday October 13, 2015 and the other on Tuesday, October 20, 2015 from approximately 20:45 to 5:20 pm. As it has been observed and recorded, during the first day on October 13th the weather was partially cloudy, slightly windy, with a temperature of 16 °C. During the second day however it was for the most part drizzling rainy. Despite the light precipitation it was warmer than the first day by three degree Celsius (19 °C). In this group experiment an overall total of 120 replicates were collected, 60 per day over the period of two days and on each day 30 replicates per location, in both Danby Woodlot and Danby Grassland settings. The method of which we collected our data was using quadrats. A random number generator was used to produce a digit which would dictate the number of steps a single person would have had to take from their point of origin to the new location where the quadrat had to be set on the surface of the ground. This tactic ensured an unbiased data and random sampling. Every time the quadrat was placed on a new ground location in the field, the plant abundance and the number of observed insects was recorded over a period of 3 minutes. The abundance of living plants (including trees) was measured using a scale from 0 to 4 with each value pertaining to a certain percentage of plant coverage, 0 being 0% coverage, 1 being 1-25% coverage, 2 being 26-50% overage, 3 being 51-75% coverage and 4 being 76-100% plant coverage. Likewise, the number of living insects was also counted inside the quadrat, every time for 3 minutes. Overall insect abundance ranged from 0 to 30 insects. The highest recorded number was 30 which set the record for the most abundant and it was observed in the Woodlot while the highest number for the Grassland to have been ever recorded by our group was 18 in comparison. The range of recorded Insect Abundance was 0-18 in the Grassland and 0-30 in the Woodlot. The overall mode in our set of data was 4.