Emily Browne
For this assignment, I chose to make a box plot that displays the diameter at breast height plotted against elevation groups. I further separated the boxes into species. It was difficult to organize my data to perform statistics and create tables. Since I have nested data and am investigating two variables it was difficult to figure out how to group the data in a way that makes sense. I ultimately averaged the tree stem diameters from each transect at the corresponding elevations to investigate the relationships between tree stem diameter and elevation. I then looked further into the relationship by dividing the data by tree species to see if that revealed a statistical relationship. The outcomes are similar to what I expected, however I still did find some interesting results. The data agrees with one of my two predictions. If I could continue this research project I would like to do it on a much larger scale, with more sites and a larger elevation gradient. I would also test additional environmental variables to see if they are driving some of the relationships seen in the data.