Did you have any difficulties in implementing your sampling strategy? If yes, what were these difficulties?
Choosing what type of sampling strategy I would use was a bit difficult, as well as deciding how many samples to take from each area. I wanted to find a good balance of collecting enough data, but not so much that I am wasting time collecting so much that it isn’t really changing my overall results. I also did my data collection in the early spring, which waiting until summer may have been better, and being able to see the actual percent cover taken up by vegetation, as opposed to estimating it, as I did.
Was the data that you collected surprising in any way?
It wasn’t too surprising. It made sense that there was more shrub coverage in the area not cleared, as well as I hypothesized there would be more wildlife activity in the cleared area which I found to be true.
Do you plan to continue to collect data using the same technique, or do you need to modify your approach? If you will modify your approach, explain briefly how you think your modification will improve your research.
I will continue to use this same technique, however, I need to collect a bit of additional information such as the coordinates of my plots and the weather. This additional information will just provide more detail to the project.