Initially, I had quite a bit of trouble deciding on a study topic due to the vast number of questions I had, paired with the need to be able to quantify natural phenomena without much equipment. Once I narrowed down my research to non-native plant species, I quickly noticed a pattern in non-native species abundance in relation to the trail in my study area. With some research I realized I would be able to investigate this pattern with minimal equipment.
My original plan for my research project was to measure the percent cover of non-native species in relation to a trail to determine if the abundance of non-native species decreased with increasing distance from the trail. While collecting the initial percent cover data, I noticed that I was having difficulty in determining percent cover, mostly because the cover of one of my study species, corn gromwell, was so low in many quadrats due to the small size of the plant (often less than 3%). Trying to distinguish between such small values (1-3%) proved difficult due to my lack of experience and general human error in estimating at such small values. As a result, I changed my tactic to measuring the number of plants of my study species within a quadrat to determine the density of each species within the quadrat. I also changed the size of the quadrat from 0.5 m x 1 m to a 1 m x 1 m quadrat so that values counted would directly translate to # of plants/ m^2. In hindsight, increasing the size of the quadrat increased the time needed to collect samples substantially due to the large number of corn gromwell present, and it likely would have been easier to enumerate the number of corn gromwell and sulphur cinquefoil in smaller quadrats.
Conducting this data has given me an appreciation for observational ecological research due to the number of confounding variables that must be considered (and controlled, if possible). Coming from a chemistry background where may studies are undertaken in a controlled environment, where many confounding variables can be eliminated through careful planning and methodology, working in a natural system with many moving parts that can not be easily or possibly be eliminated was challenging.