Lab 2 - Sampling Plant Populations and Communities Using a Quadrat in the Grasslands

This Experiment was conducted on September 22, 2015 from, 3:40pm to 4:18pm, at Danby Woods, York University grassland area with my partner, Mohammed. The weather consisted of sunny skies and a steady temperature of 20°C. The grassland terrain mostly consisted of low leveled vegetation which was found in clusters abundant in the area. Using Random.org, a number was randomly generated from 1-20 to determine how many steps were needed to take in between each quadrat in order to eliminate the potential for bias. This was repeated 25 times, the first 13 replicates were taken West in direction, and the last 12 replicates were taken towards the East in direction. Each time the quadrat was placed on the ground a few observations were noted; i) the total abundance of plants which were manually counted one at a time, ii) total number of plant species-classified and counted manually iii) the total coverage of vegeation as well as total coverage of grasses which was approximated by the eye and relativity.

本实验于2015年9月22日下午3:40至4:18，在约克大学丹比伍兹（Danby Woods）草地区域开展，合作搭档为穆罕默德（Mohammed）。当日天气晴朗，气温稳定维持在20℃。该草地以低矮植被为主，区域内植被呈集群状广泛分布。借助Random.org平台生成1至20的随机数，以确定每两个样方（quadrat）之间的步距，以此消除采样偏差风险。该流程共开展25组重复采样：前13组沿正西方向实施，后12组沿正东方向开展。每次将样方放置于地面后，需记录以下观测数据：i）逐株手动计数的植物总丰度；ii）经分类并手动计数的植物物种总数；iii）植被总盖度及草本层盖度，二者均通过目视及相对估算完成。