My field experiment required many revisions to its implementation and design. There was a major confound in my preliminary hypothesis which I then had to switch. This resulted in me having to change my replicates and change what predictor variable was. One thing that I noted is how much time it takes to actually collect data. It took me around 2 hours every data collection, and of course that was only for a low-scale experiment. Engaging in the practice of ecology has definitely made me appreciate the immense detail that goes into certain decisions regarding design, data collection, and the need for considering a multitude of factors that can potentially confound your experiment (and how you have to control for them!). Also, when I was conducting my literature review I learned about so many ecological processes that I would have never thought may affect pollination patterns. Ecological research is one of the hardest projects I’ve taken on, and after completing the course I now know there are many things I could have tweaked or improved upon.
Yes! it can be very time-consuming but fun, cause data collection is outside