Create a blog post describing your field data collection activities. How many replicates did you sample? Have you had any problems implementing your sampling design? Have you noticed any ancillary patterns that make you reflect on your hypothesis?
My field data collection is going well, I have been to the study area several times now but last weekend finally committed to an entire afternoon to collect all of the data I needed for my study. I broke up the sampling area by flood strata (1 in 5 year floodplain, 1 in 8 year floodplain, and so on..) and assigned a roughly even number of random sites within each flood level. Each flood level was sampled 5 times, giving 5 replicates for the study, each including one sample from each of 6 flood levels (30 samples total).
Thus far my only sampling issue has been that I mistakenly only assigned 25 sites across 6 levels, so I need to collect another 5 samples from three under-sampled (<5 samples) flood levels to finish my data collection. So far, I have noticed a pattern with regard to invasive species that supports my hypothesis. Almost all of the invasive species on the island are in the 1 in 100 year floodplain, this makes sense if my hypothesis is true, as these areas are the most altered and lack the somewhat regular disturbance of flooding which I believe gives native floodplain woody species an advantage.
Sounds like all is going well. I am back from mat leave and taking over from Nancy. I looked through your previous blog posts and small assignments to get caught up on your project. One question I didn’t see in your small assignment is how you determined the flood strata, make sure you include in your final paper.