Total Abundance of Goldenrod species vs Distance from Disturbance on Mowed or Unmowed Areas

The data was collected at the grassland of York University Campus on Wednesday, October 14, 2015 and Wednesday, October 21, 2015 at 2:45 pm to 4:35 pm contributed by all group members:J. Quach, L. Tran, Amin A., S. Alvi and I. Darman. On both days, the area appeared to be contain mostly (but not all) dead vegetation such as wilted flowers and/or bent stems and discoloured and/or flattened grass. On October 14, 2015, the weather was cloudy and the area was minimally lit, and cold wind was present. On October 21, 2015, the weather was sunny and the area was well lit, and cool wind was present. The mowed areas showed more signs of plant life compared to unmowed areas, since the influence of human disturbance is more dominant in mowed than unmowed areas and litter can be seen frequently around the mowed areas. Animals that could tolerate cold temperatures such as Blue Jays appeared often in the grasslands. Minimal noise level was present in the grasslands. No pollinators could be seen near the vegetation. The purpose of this experiment was to test if an area that appears to be disturbed, namely, mowed areas will have an impact on the total abundance of a species compared to areas that appear not to be disturbed, namely, the unmowed areas. This effect was shown by counting the total abundance of the target species, Goldenrod, within a quadrat of 1x1 metre sampling along the transects from the first disturbance (labelled as Keele Street) to the second disturbance (labelled as York University), and from second disturbance (labelled as York University) to the first disturbance (labelled as Keele Street). The materials required for this experiment were 2 transect measuring tapes (30 metres in length), 2 quadrats (measured in 1x1 metres), paper and pen to jot down the observations. Split into two groups, each group randomly sample in the grassland, looking out for areas that are categorized as: (1) mowed area, (2) unmowed area, and (3) mixture of mowed and unmowed area. After deciding where to collect the data, each group set the transect (30 metres in length) from the edge of the grassland and extended towards the first disturbance (Keele Street), and second disturbance (York University) respectively. For every 5 metres covered, a quadrat was laid down (measured in 1x1 metres) perpendicular to the transect and the total number of abundance of Goldenrods inside the area of the quadrat was counted by eyeing them and recorded. Make note of whether the sample being observed is in a mowed or unmowed area, easily identified by the height of the vegetation (low=mowed, high=unmowed). Repeat the method several times until 21 samples are acquired at a maximum distance of 100 metres per transect. Transects labelled from 1 to 5 (from which the order they were collected) are placed in 5 random areas in the grassland for a total of 5 times. A sample size of n=105 and 500 metres in distance was covered in the span of 2 weeks. Since the cold climate has eliminated most of the vegetation found in the grassland, including the Goldenrod species, the only defining characteristics that could be identified were based on the physical attributes such as the shape of the leaves and the waxiness of them, and the colour of the flowers, which were yellow. Even with those indicators available, identifying the species was still proven to be difficult because of the discolouration and loss of texture due to the cold climate. As such, chances of error were prone to be high when identifying Goldenrod species where similar looking individuals could be mistaken for them and smaller individuals of Goldenrods species could be missed. Furthermore, the total abundance and distribution of the Goldenrod species may be inaccurate in this dataset due to the clustered-like nature being spread out in random intervals of the transect, where the samples in one quadrat with less abundance had more abundance next to it that was not sampled.