I sit now in reflection on the experiences of having conducted this field research: many feelings of excitement, exhaustion, and accomplishment. Doing a field experiment was one of the very challenging tasks that turned out to be both interesting and rewarding. It deepened my knowledge of ecological theory while instilling a new appreciation for the practice of ecology. The research depended on the growth of plants or grass if we changed the soil from one area to another. Since we started doing our experiment, numerous issues have started developing. First, there was unpredictable weather. To be specific, heavy rainfall and extreme temperatures affected the growth of our study plants. Also, since the space that I chose to conduct my experiment on was very small, I increased the area to 30 cm by 30 cm. By conducting the practice of ecology, I began to gain a deeper appreciation for just how ecological theory is created.
I realize now that the theories from ecology don’t exist as abstractions per se but are instead rooted within the complex, messy reality of the natural world. Through the design and implementation of field experiments, I came to realize absolutely the challenges and obstacles inside ecological studies. I learned loads from this revel in—as an instance, there may be usually a couple of aspects that are affecting the effects and a new stage of appreciation for the need for replication, sampling, and high-quality facts in ecological research.