For my sampling during this project, I used the following sampling strategies
- Fixed Plot Sampling: Establish fixed plots within each site where you will place flowers of different colours. This allows for consistent observation and data collection. There was some bias within each plot as the amount of colouration in the flowers wasn’t a lot, making my sample size reasonably small.
- Random Sampling: In each plot, I selected flowers of different colours to reduce selection bias and get help to identify the visitation rates of various colours.
- Standardize Conditions: Ensure flowers are similarly exposed to sunlight and placed at similar heights to avoid environmental biases.
Due to a busy fieldwork schedule with my summer job, I only had two days to collect my data, which certainly affected my sampling size. Each day of sampling was for around 3 hours.