I returned to my area of observation on May 31, 2022 from 18:50 to 19:20 in Prince George, BC. The coordinates are 53.90, -122.84. During that time, I observed different types of vegetation in the field and forest that I could study.
I plan to study the differences in plant species richness from the forest compared to the open field. My hypothesis is that there will be a greater plant species richness in the forest compared to the open field. I noticed that there were more weeds like dandelions, and horsetails that were present in the field, but they were present very sparingly in the forest. My prediction will be that there is a greater number of tree saplings, moss, etc. in the forest than in the field. There will be a smaller number of dandelions in the forest. The images of the 3 locations on the gradient I chose to study are below.
Response variable: abundance and types of plant different plant species type. This is a continuous variable because it is measured on a continuous scale and categorical because of the categorization into different plant species. Explanatory/predictor variable: Growth in the presence or absence of forest. This is a categorical variable because the classification is either the presence or absence of a forest. The natural experiment design that would be most appropriate for this study would be logistic regression. I think I will sample the vegetation using a quadrat. Some types of plant species I’ve observed are shown below:
Cheers,
Olivia Spooner
Hi Olivia, this is an interesting study site and I love your ideas. To adjust you hypothesis perhaps try phrasing it as an “if” “then” statement. In this case “If species richness increases in forested areas, then the species richness will be less in open areas or meadows” As for the prediction it can be written in the same format “If my hypothesis is true, and I do this test, then this is what I will observe”. Overall I think you’ve got all the pieces for a great experiment.
Cheers,
Lane Robinson