Field Research Project – Ongoing Field Observations
Date: September 13, 2022
Time: 6:30 – 7:00 pm
Location: Niagara College Lagoons, Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON
Weather: 18 ⁰ C, cloudy, cool
Hypothesis: I hypothesize that there will be a greater abundance of midland painted turtles present in lagoon 1 versus lagoon 2, and also during the hours of dusk and dawn.
The organism or biological attribute I plan to study are the turtles present in the Niagara College lagoons (specifically the midland painted turtles). The observations that I made along an environmental gradient included the front of lagoon 1 (turtles present), the back of lagoon 1 (turtles present), and lagoon 2 (turtles not present). The potential underlying processes that I believe can cause the patterns that I have observed are that lagoon 1 has fewer other species present that can threaten the turtle population, I also belie that more turtles will be present at dusk and dawn. Based on my hypothesis and prediction one possible explanatory variable is the time of day that the turtles are observed, and one possible response variable would be the number of turtles present. Both of these variables would be considered continuous data.