Grassland Species Abundance, Richness, and Percent Cover.

The purpose of this experiment is to measure species abundance and richness in a grassland area at York University campus. Materials needed to perform the experiment are: - Data sheet - Metal Square quadrat - Plant identification leaf guide Group of four students are sent out to the grassland. 25 random samples are to be taken of the total area of the grassland. The quadrat was placed randomly each time on the grassland to measure these data sets: naming each species present in each quadrat, identifying the plants by distinguishing distinctive features such as the shape of the leaf or the flower. A leaf guide is provided that displays different types of leaves and their associate species name. Abundance of species is also recorded which is the number of individuals per species present in the quadrat. Almost all the species were easy to count as the individuals were big and separated. The only exception was the grass (poa) species, there were so abundant in every quadrat that it was almost impossible to count every single individual, alternative method was to count a small portion from the quadrat and estimate the total number. Species richness was also calculated which is the total number of species present in each quadrat. Lastly, percent cover was estimated. It is the relative abundance based on how much space they occupy in each quadrat, it does not involve counting the abundance and converting to a percentage, it is a visual estimation of how much space is occupied by each species. the percent cover could reach up to more than 100% because of overlapping between species.