Stockley Open Park was visited again on May 29, 2022 to continue the collection of data. It was a partly cloudy day, and was warm at 20 degrees C. The experimental design was kept consistent with the method utilized for initial data collection. That is, transects were set up on both sides of the trail, and quadrats were placed at 0, 5, 10, and 15 m from the trail edge, and percent cover was determined in each quadrat.
During this visit, 4 more transects were placed (continuing on from the area that the first 6 transects were laid), with 2 transects placed upslope of the trail and two transects placed downslope of the trail.
The species chosen for this study were sulphur cinquefoil and corn gromwell. These two species were not as abundant along some transects as anticipated. Upon analysis of the data, it was noted that when calculating an average value of percent cover at each discrete distance, the results were often skewed by values from a few of the transects with much larger abundances. To combat this, it was decided that additional sampling would need to be completed, so that the data of one transect did not overwhelm the data of others (i.e., so that the average value was not disproportionately influenced by one or two high abundance values). It is anticipated that additional sampling will allow for a more representative analysis of spatial distribution of species in the field at Stockley Open Park as a whole. An additional 4 transects will be measured at the very least, and data re-analyzed to determine if this is still a concern.
The predicted pattern of higher abundances of sulphur cinquefoil and corn gromwell near the trail generally held true based on the initial data collection; however, there were some transects in which this pattern was not observed. Research on plant growth and dispersal will be conducted to try to help explain why this may be so.
Data is presented below:
| Corn Gromwell | |||||||||||
| % Cover | |||||||||||
| Distance | T1 | T2 | T3 | T4 | T5 | T6 | T7 | T8 | T9 | T10 | Average |
| 0 | 35 | 3 | 90 | 3 | 10 | 2 | 7 | 3 | 15 | 2 | 17 |
| 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1.8 |
| 10 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 20 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 3.3 |
| 15 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0.9 |
| Sulphur Cinqfoil | |||||||||||
| % Cover | |||||||||||
| Distance | T1 | T2 | T3 | T4 | T5 | T6 | T7 | T8 | T9 | T10 | Average |
| 0 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 50 | 7 | 10 | 8.7 |
| 5 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 15 | 1 | 10 | 4.5 |
| 10 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0.9 |
| 15 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.9 |
Update (June 3, 2022)
After further review of my data, and a discussion with a coworker who specializes in plant biology, I decided to alter how data is collected. I have decided to measure the number of individual plants in each quadrat instead of the percent cover. This decision was made to reduce personal bias/human error during data collection. As I know the hypothesis and prediction I am studying, it is difficult to eliminate bias, especially due to my lack of experience with estimating the percent cover of plant species. The other reason this decision was made is because in many of the plots I estimated there to be less than 3% cover. While I attempted to be as objective and quantitative as possible, discriminating between the percentages at such a small value/range was exceedingly difficult. The method of using percent cover is likely more appropriate for studies with larger percent covers and larger differences in percent cover. Original data (above tables) will likely not be used in this research. Additionally, I decided to change the quadrat size to 1 m x 1 m so that the original data would be # of individuals/m^2 (density).