Techniques Lab Animals : Birds, Abundance and Diversity

We as a group of four students conducted an experiment on the abundance and diversity of bird species and count the number of birds in different areas of natural and urban areas. We used binoculars, transects and dichotomous keys to study the number of different bird species found in every location. We used transects to measure the distance of the areas where the birds were found. About 8 transects were used at a particular date of October 13 and about 10 transects were used on October 20th, 2015 in both areas of urbanised and Natural areas of Woodlot and Grassland. Transects were placed in different areas of Urbanised and Grassland habitats of York University. Each transect was observed at a 120 metre distance. The number of bird species found on every transect were observed by binoculars or human eye. Later, the birds found were looked into the dichotomous key and correct species were noted. We also observed whether food, garbage or people affect the abundance of bird species in urbanised areas whether greater abundance is due to all these aspects, or birds are less adapted to people in urbanised areas and have lesser abundance in urbanised areas.