Species Richness and Abundance at York University Grass and Wood Lots Based on Canopy Coverage and Human Activity

This experiment had Trials 1 and 2 (for both lots) take place on Monday October 19, 2015 between 2:30 and 5:00pm. The weather consisted a cloudy, grey sky and the temperature was 14 degrees Celsius. Trials 3 (for the two lots) took place on Monday October 26, 2015 between 2:30 and 4:30 pm. The weather was sunny and clear while the temperatures was about 10 degrees Celsius. All Grasslot experiments were done on the York University Stong Pond grasslot and all Woodlot experiments on Saywell Woodlot. The purpose of this study was to discover the effects canopy coverage and human activity might have on the species richness and plant abundance of different organisms. The experiment was conducted (for each replicate) by placing a transect 10m across in a straight line and counting/identifying all the plants in a 1m reach of the transect. Human Activity was measured on an ordinal scale where traffic and obstructions were taken into consideration. Canopy Coverage was determined on the transect by looking into the sky and determining how much was visible.