I completed my data collection across 3 sampling trips in late October and November (not counting the initial data collection). I was careful to complete my data collection before the berries dropped off the bushes in late autumn, as I knew that I would be busy at the end of the semester. Now that I have finished my other courses, I can dedicate my full attention to this data and my report.
Collection went mostly without a hitch. The sampling method using the pvc pipe quadrat was a success and the randomization strategy I employed worked well. I endured some struggles at the hands of the weather, being rained out one day and actually snowed on another (rare for Victoria!). Perhaps my biggest oversight was vastly underestimating the amount of time it would take to actually count the berries within my sampling units. I entered data collection thinking that I would be collecting way more samples than my stated minimum, but ended up collecting basically only the minimum amount of samples.
Including the initial data collection, I collected a total of 34 replicates across my 3 categories, meeting my stated minimum of 10 replicates per category. An additional pattern that I have noticed is that the berry bushes facing a contested undergrowth seem to have more berries than bushes of a similar height not competing with plants growing underneath them. My hypothesis was that height was directly correlated with berry numbers, but this is an additional factor that could also influence berry abundance.