experimental design: The effect of edge on insects abundance

The experiments were conducted on Oct. 17 and Oct. 24, 2014 at the Danby grassland in Keele Campus, York University. The weather conditions on Oct. 17 included heavy rain and 5 celsius temperatures. On Oct.24 the weather was cloudy and 6 celsius. On each day York University students placed 2 different 25 meters transect tapes starts from the edge of grassland to the middle of the grassland . the edge of the grassland was anywhere where the grassland starts. Along the transect students placed a 1m by 1m quadrat (five quadrats were used for each 25 meter transect tape) and dug the pitfall trap in the middle of the quadrat every 5 meters along the 25 meter transects tape to a total of 5 pitfall traps. Students labeled the pitfall traps for each 25 meter transects A, B, C and D respectively. The total of 20 pitfall traps were dug along the 4 transects. Next students measured the density of the vegetation in each 1m x 1m quadrat by counting the plants in a quadrant of the quadrat and multiplying by a factor of four to get the total number of plants around the pitfall traps in the quadrat. the type of plants were not identified and only measured the total abundance of all types of plant species that were found in each quadrat. Students waited 2 hours and then counted the number of insect that was found in each pitfall trap. The type of insect was not recorded for this experiment.