WK5 - Experimental Design - How Distance from a Pond Impacts Insect Abundance

Methods: This experiment took place over a two day period: Tuesday, October 13th, 2015 (from 2:30-4:30 pm), and Tuesday, October 20th, 2015 (from 230-4:00 pm). To execute this experiment, we began by selecting the unmowed grassland that runs parallel to the Stong pond as our sampling area. This pond is found on the Southeast corner of York University’s Keele campus. This experiment was designed on our own in order to study the impact of the Stong pond on insect abundance in the unmowed grassland. In order to study this, we selected sampling areas at distances of 1, 10 and 20 meters from the pond. This distance was measured using a transect in order to ensure accurate execution. Once at these distances, we placed a quadrat in order to count both plant density and insect abundance. We placed 20 quadrats at each distance running parallel with the pond. The quadrats were placed one meter apart from each other in order to ensure we sampled a sufficient area.