I opted to create a table (see Table 1 below) to collate my data collection. I note that the tutorial indicated figures are preferred but in this case, I think a table was more appropriate and easier to read and interpret.
In terms of summarizing data, this ended up being easy to do. It should be noted that I was relying on both visual and auditory detection and therefore, did not do a count of individuals encountered. I was only recording presences of a species. Overall, I observed 24 different species in my study area: 14 species in the cutblock, 11 in the regeneration stand, and 12 in the mature forest. This was not entirely the outcome I expected, and the mature forest had more species than I anticipated, some of which I didn’t expect to see there. I believe this is likely due to edge effects and the habitat not being large enough for my survey points to be in the true “inner forest”. If this was a study I was going to pursue further I would look to find significantly larger habitat areas, in particular for the mature forest.
Although not required for the final report, I did run a one-way ANOVA in Excel to confirm there was not a statistically significant difference between the species richness in the habitat types. My experimental p-value was 0.518 which is greater than 0.05, therefore my null hypothesis was not rejected (fail to reject H0).
Table 1: Bird species detected in different age classes of Coastal Western Hemlock (CWH) forested study area near the Oyster River, Vancouver Island, BC.
| Bird Species | Species Code | Habitat a
and Detection b |
||
| A | B | C | ||
| American Robin | AMRO | y | y | y |
| Anna’s Hummingbird | ANHU | y | ||
| Bald Eagle | BAEA | y | y | |
| Brown Creeper | BRCR | y | ||
| Chestnut-backed Chickadee | CBCH | y | ||
| Common Raven | CORA | y | y | |
| Dark-eye Junco | DEJU | y | y | y |
| Hairy Woodpecker | HAWO | y | ||
| Hermit Thrush | HETH | y | ||
| Hutton’s Vireo | HUVI | y | ||
| Mallard | MALL | y | ||
| Norther Flicker | NOFL | y | y | |
| Pacific Wren | PAWR | y | y | |
| Pileated Woodpecker | PIWO | y | ||
| Red-breasted Sapsucker | RBSA | y | ||
| Sooty Grouse | SOGR | y | ||
| Song Sparrow | SOSP | y | ||
| Spotted Towhee | SPTO | y | y | y |
| Steller’s Jay | STJA | y | y | |
| Tree Swallow | TRSW | y | y | |
| Turkey Vulture | TUVU | y | ||
| Varied Thrush | VATH | y | ||
| White-crowned Sparrow | WCSP | y | ||
| Yellow-rumped Warbler | YRWA | y | y | |
a Habitat age class: A = Cutblock (planted 2020); B = Regeneration stand (planted 2011); C = Mature stand (planted 1946)
b Detection y = yes; empty cell = no detection