Exploring Species Abundance in Danby Grassland at York University- Dataset 1 Lab02

Group Members: Mary, Shaneil, Prachi, Anthony, Gamsajny Data was collected at York University Keele Campus Danby grassland on Wednesday September 23rd at approximately 3:00 pm. It was about 22-23 degrees and very hot. The area was also dry. Upon reaching the grassland, our group split into two groups to cover a larger range. We picked a spot and positioned our quadrat and observed the quadrated area for the total abundance of plants, species richness, total percentage cover, and the percent cover of grass. The quadrat was 1m x 1m so the observed area had a surface area of 1m^2. The total abundance was calcluated by looking at the area in the quadrat and conducting a quick count of the number of plants observed in that area. Species richness was obtained by identifying different species and counting how many species there were in total. Total percent cover was obtained by observing how much of the quadrated area was actually covered by vegetation if all the plants were tightly packed. Grass cover was a percentage of how much of the total vegetation was occupied by grass. The quadrats were randomly placed and we repeated this process 10 times and our other group members also repeated this process 10 times to get a total of 20 data sets.All of the data obtained were mere estimates based on keen observation, although they may be very close to accurate, it cannot be certain that the numbers are highly correct as it was very difficult to accurately count each plant. This process familiarized us with the use of quadrats and exposed us to a large range of vegetation and to be able to identify many different plant species.