Looking back on my study design and research, I am pretty happy with how everything worked out. There are multiple changes I would make if I were to do this project as a funded researcher over a long time span. For example, examining insect diversity as well as bird, expanding to multiple parks, and sampling many more times. However, I feel that for a course of this nature, taken while I am working a full-time research job, this was a doable project with clear results and that is about as much as I can hope for. I both did not feel overwhelmed by what I needed to complete/sample during this time and got enough data to work with.
Most of the research I found similar to my project involved research across urban parks, rather than within them. Therefore, I think if I were to attempt a publishable study in this field, I would want to combine my within-park research with cross-park studies and run a mixed model to assess the role of human disturbances in bird diversity in urban parks.
Previously, for my honours thesis, I did my own research on passerine genetic diversity, so I was already familiar with how to create and conduct research before this class. However, due to covid, I could not do fieldwork for my thesis, so I have not had much field experience. Creating this study helped me figure out how to manage fieldwork and gave me a greater sense of what is doable and what problems can arise while creating a field-based research goal.