For my data collection, I chose to do a systematic sample placement. These are often places along a transect at a regular distance. Since I’m studying lake water samples, I chose to get samples at every 1m interval.
Lake Three samples will be 0m, 1m, 2m, 3m, 4m, 5m
Lake Devonian samples will be 0m, 1m, 2m, 3m, 4m, 5m
Lake Muir samples will be 0m, 1m, 2m, 3m, 4m, 5m, 6m, 7m
Thus, I will have a total of 20 samples.
Since I conduct monthly analyses of the lakes at my chosen site, it was not difficult for me to implement a strategy. My goal is to analyse chlorophyll concentrations and compare them to nutrient concentrations, for that to be a reality it is best to have samples at each interval. Some of the lakes were shallower than expect (Lake Devonian and Three usually go down to 6 or 7m, but to not get any sediment in my water, I chose to pivot and only go up to 5m in depth). I do plan to collect any further data using this same technique. In my case, a systematic sample placement was the perfect way to conduct my research and reading about in Module 3 helped a lot.
Will you do multiple replicates at each depth at each lake?