During this field study you are
going to estimate a plant and an animal population. When looking in a
natural population it is uncommon to be able to count every
individual in a population.
To overcome this, sampling is
done and then an estimate is made of the whole population. In this case
we are going to use four methods of sampling. For the plant population
we are going to use a quadrat and a transect.
For the animal we will use capture/recapture and the random quadrat
method.
To do any experiment that
involves animals it is necessary to gain permission from an animal
ethics committee. It is not acceptable to capture animals unless the
experiment is of some merit and the information cannot be obtained by
any other means.
Estimating
a plant population by random quadrat
Estimating
an animal population by random quadrat
Estimating
an animal population by capture/recapture
Distribution
of a plant and animal species
You have been looking at the abundance
of organisms. The distribution of the
organism is another important part of the ecosystem. The abiotic
factors of the ecosystem in conjunction with the biotic factors
control the distribution of organisms. To look at the distribution of
the species you have just been studying click
here.
