Three different sampling strategies were used in the virtual forest tutorial.The results of percentage errors in each one are provided in the table below
Random | Systematic | Haphazard | |
Red Maple | 15.90 | 11.22 | 13.4 |
Witch Hazel | 14.62 | 9.5 | 18.6 |
Striped Maple | 35.55 | 49.82 | 12.9 |
Downy Juneberry | 42.90 | 52.93 | absent |
Random Sampling Technique had the fastest estimated sampling time of 4 hours and 50 minutes.The change in the accuracy was observed to be related to the species abundance.I found the random Sampling technique to be most accurate.
How fast were the other ones? They are usually around 12-13 hours and show only small differences between strategies. Do these samples and errors indicate anything about sample size for both common and rare species?