Frequency of Insects in Grassland & Woodlot of York University

Method: On September 30, 2014, at 2:30pm our Ecology lab group, led by our teacher assistant Taylor Noble, split up into 3 groups. After walking to the grassland and woodlot area of York University – Keele Campus, each group was responsible for collecting 4 datasets. The grassland and woodlots were in decent condition despite the rain before our laboratory time, and it was still possible to observe and identify insects. Our group members were Jason, Coleen, Leeron, Zainab and Sanaz. The following dataset is for the first dataset collected. In this dataset, instead of pit fall traps, 1m by 1m quadrants were used. Ten separate quadrants were randomly placed throughout the grassland, and then throughout the woodlot. To count the number of insects in a quadrant, the entire quadrant was observed. If an insect group (i.e ants) was seen throughout the entire quadrant, the frequency of ants in ¼ of the quadrant was recorded and then multiplied by 4 to get the number of ants in the entire quadrant. For other insect groups (i.e. snails, spiders, etc.) the entire quadrant was observed and the frequency for each insect group was recorded. Later, we would be able to identify how many different insect groups there were, and how many insects in total were in each quadrant. Overall, 20 quadrants were randomly placed, 10 in the Grassland and 10 in the Woodlot and the above-mentioned procedure was done for each quadrant.