I plan to study vegetation as my sampling unit (percent ground cover and number of species observed).
I have selected an area that was a landfill that was covered in soil about ten years ago and want to look at if the slope aspect affects plant re-vegetation. The environmental gradient will be various slopes on the landfill edges. I will collect data in quadrats (30×30 cm) every 20 m along the transect (systematic sampling) with a randomly selected starting point and continue for 10 quadrats per transect. By selecting a distance of 20 m I will ensure independence between quadrats.
My hypothesis is south facing slopes have better sun exposure (especially in the fall and spring in the arctic) and will be more hospitable to plants. My prediction based on that hypothesis is vegetative cover will be greater and number of species observed will be greater on south-facing slopes compared to north-facing slopes.
The response variable is the percent vegetative cover (continuous) and number of species (discrete). The explanatory variable is the slope aspect (categorical).
Please see my field notes below.
Overview photos of the sampling site:
