My final field project ended up following a very similar design to what was planned at the beginning of this journey, however a few things had to be changed as the original study was slightly too ambitious for my level of Ecology knowledge (this is the first Ecology class I’ve taken 🙂 ). My original hypothesis for this experiment was “Environmental factors, elevation rates and species diversity influences population density of Vinca minor” but this was simplified to “as elevation rates increase, the population density of Vinca minor will decrease”. My study overall had to be narrowed down since there were too many factors that I originally wanted to include, however the other factors that were mentioned such as sun exposure, effects of neighbouring species, and high water concentration; specifically in soil in the location of highest elevation were not factors that could be easily quantifiable, and overall made the study to complex with a lack of direction. In the end, the data collected supported the hypothesis which was lovely! The Vinca minor appeared to have a higher population density in areas of lower elevation, and did not appear at all in areas of higher elevation. I do believe that other factors still contribute to the overall findings of the paper, however this would require other studies to be carried out to know for sure. Engaging in the designing and conducting of this field experiment has definitely given me an overall appreciation for the science of Ecology and how theory is developed. I hope to continue to expand on my knowledge of what I learned throughout this course, specifically in regard to identifying the species and coming to understand how they all may work together to create a vast interconnecting ecosystem. Overall, I really enjoyed the process and learned many things along the way!