Insect Density in a Mowed Grassland vs Non-Mowed Grassland

Ecology students at York University collected a sample of insect population density in the mowed and unmowed grasslands along Pond road on Wednesday, September 30th at approximately 3:00-4:00 PM. The temperature was approximately 15 degress celcius with alot of wind and sun. 10 replicates of 1 meter by 1 meter quadrants were systematically placed 5 steps away from the previous quadrant in the mowed grasslands to manually observe the types of insects found and to manually count the number of insect of each speices. The same experiment was repeated on the unmowed areas of the grassland using the same method and tools.This experiment allowed us to compare the insect density in mowed grassland versus the insect density in an unmowed grassland. Common insects found in both grasslands were grasshoppers, crickets and flies.