Animal Sightings Lab - paper
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School
University of North Carolina, Charlotte *
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Course
3144
Subject
Geography
Date
Dec 6, 2023
Type
docx
Pages
11
Uploaded by CorporalSpider3619
Group#
Members of pair:
1.
____Kyle Crawford_______________________
2.
____Randall Grant_______________________
Answer the following sentences in
complete sentences
using citations when necessary.
Introduction:
1.
What is the purpose of the “Animal Sightings” investigation? Why might a community
seek to complete an investigation like this?
The purpose of this investigation is to observe and identify the biodiversity within the
UNCC campus. A community may seek to complete an investigation like this because
they want to know what animals are located within a certain environment. This would
help to understand what animals are able to coexist with one another and how these
animals thrive.
2.
What factors may impact animal abundance? richness? species diversity? Find three
factors
, one for each
, citing the source where it came from using
in-text citation.
Animal abundance can be affected by the urbanization of a certain area. The
addition of roads to certain areas was studied and showed that it has a drastic
impact on the abundance of animals within that area
(Fahrig, 2009)
. 79 studies
involving 131 species and 30 species groups were conducted to prove this
theory. Amphibians and reptiles were shown to be most affected by the insertion
of roads, while birds showed to have minimal to no effect on the insertion of
roads, with there being a few positive effects.
Animal richness within a certain environment is directly affected by the amount of
area the research covers. The animal richness will increase as the area sampled
increases
(Kallimanis, 2008)
. Every species is associated with a certain
habitat/environment, and so if the area covered is one dimensional, there will be
a lower species richness. The assumption is that when you cover more area,
there will be more habitats added, and this would result in a greater number of
species being added.
Animal species diversity can be impacted in many different ways, including
habitat diversity and plant diversity within a habitat. Researchers have identified
that the types of plants, especially trees, can heavily impact the type of species
found in a certain environment
(Joly, 2017)
. Plant diversity affects the diversity of
decomposition of dead organisms and the recycling of carbon and nutrients,
which affects the diversity of species.
3.
Give a one-two sentence summary/goal of an experiment where abundance and
diversity of an ecosystem was compared. (what did they do, and what did they find?)
Cite using in-text citations.
Researchers in Scotland analyzed the trends of the richness and diversity(among
other variables) of ground beetle populations at 6 sites over the course of 18 years.
(Pozsgai, 2015)
The goal was to determine ground beetles’ survivability when dealing
with the effects of the changing climate. They found that the diversity exhibited no
significant change at 5 of the sites, but richness decreased at 4 sites, increased at one
site and remained the same at one site.
4.
Include a map of the area the UNC Charlotte experiment you conducted took place, with
appropriate label and figure caption.
Figure 1: Map of University of North Carolina Charlotte. Researchers sampled
urban(Orange, Purple, Blue) and rural(Pink, Yellow, Green) paths..
5.
Write out a direct hypothesis for this lab reflecting abundance, diversity, and richness
between urban and rural ecosystems at UNC Charlotte:
The mean abundance, richness, and diversity in urban areas will be lower than when
compared to rural areas within UNC Charlotte because the insertion of roads
(Fahrig,
2009)
, habitat diversity
(Joly, 2017)
, and geographical region
(Kallimanis, 2008)
will
negatively impact the biodiversity within the urban areas of UNC Charlotte.
Methods:
6.
Where was the study conducted? How many groups? Over what period of time?
This study was conducted at rural and urban sites on the campus of the University of
North Carolina at Charlotte. Six groups sampled six areas(three urban, three rural). The
experiment was conducted on two different days, for forty minutes each day.
7.
How did we measure abundance?
Abundance was measured by the total number of animals observed between all 6
groups, on a 40 minute time interval, across two days, within the study.
8.
How did we measure richness?
Richness was measured by the amount of animals spotted within each species between
all 6 groups, on a 40 minute time interval, across two days, within the study.
9.
How did we measure diversity?
Diversity was measured by the different types of species recorded across all 6 groups,
on a 40 minute time interval, over two days, within the study.
10. How were averages obtained for these categories?
Averages were obtained by including all data collected by all 6 groups, over 2 days of 40
minute time intervals, and dividing the abundance or amount of each species by its
species and total species collected.
11. What statistical test was appropriate to compare the average
abundance/richness/diversity in urban vs. rural environments? (be specific to the
hypothesis you wrote)
The appropriate statistical test to compare these averages would be a one tail T test. We
hypothesized the means of abundance, diversity, and richness would all be lower in
urban areas than in rural areas. Therefore, we expected them to all be on one side of the
bell curve, making the one tailed t-test most appropriate
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12. What software was used to complete this statistical test?
We used Jamovi 2.3.21 to analyze our data.
Results:
Use Jamovi to complete the following - refer to the first lab instructions for specific directions to
run the software.
13. Use “2023.02.05_Animal Sightings_abundance.diversity.richness.csv”
Create a table of descriptive statistics for abundance, diversity, and richness split by
urban and rural sites; including the following: mean, confidence interval, st. deviation,
variance.
Insert your table here, include a correct label and caption:
Table 1: Statistical description for rural vs urban sites
Table 1 shows the statistical mean, confidence interval, standard deviation, and variance of animal
abundance, diversity, and richness, split by urban and rural areas.
Sites
Abundance
Richness
Diversity
Mean
Rural
36.0
8.67
4.83
Urban
13.5
6.67
3.48
95% CI mean lower bound
Rural
15.9
0.684
2.03
Urban
6.71
2.99
1.10
95% CI mean upper bound
Rural
56.1
16.6
7.64
Urban
20.3
10.3
5.85
Standard deviation
Rural
19.2
7.61
2.68
Urban
6.47
3.50
2.26
Variance
Rural
368
57.9
7.16
Urban
41.9
12.3
5.12
Note.
The CI of the mean assumes sample means follow a t-distribution with N - 1 degrees of freedom
14. Graphical representation - Bar plots for abundance, diversity, and richness should be
made, labels and captions included,
paste here:
15. What are the error bars representing for the data?
The error bars are representing the confidence interval of the data. The confidence
interval is a measure of the uncertainty of the coordinate of the top of the bar.
16. Use “Species comparison” csv file. Create a table of species in each site. Variables: rural
and urban, Split by Species; Omit everything but the mean.
Insert your table here,
include a correct label and caption:
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Table 2 shows the statistical mean of urban vs rural abundance
17. Describe the objective in collecting all of the above data (what was compared) and the
general trends observed from these data
in words
(do not make conclusions yet!)
Should be at least one paragraph.
The objective in collecting all of the above data is to compare the abundance, richness,
and diversity of animals sighted between rural and urban areas. We compare these by
using all the animal sightings collected from both areas from a range of mostly birds,
some squirrels, and other rodents. Some general trends we can observe from the data is
that there are a lot of birds that were sighted in the rural areas that were not sighted in
the urban areas. We can also see that there is a closer relationship between the
diversity and richness of the urban and rural areas than when compared to their
abundance. The richness of the urban areas is the only category that surpasses the rural
areas at any point.
18. Conduct a statistical test to compare the means of urban and rural sires for each of the
following (paste the results as tables with labels/captions or type them in words):
Table 3:
Table 3: T-Test of Abundance, Richness, and Diversity. One tailed T-test was
conducted for this table
Discussion
19. How does the p-value compare to alpha at 0.05 for each of the variables?
The p-value for abundance is below alpha at 0.05. The p-values of both richness and
diversity are above alpha at 0.05.
20. What does this comparison tell us about the data significance for each of the variables?
There is a statistically significant difference in abundance of species in urban areas vs
rural areas UNCC campus. There is no statistically significant difference in richness or
diversity between rural and urban areas on UNCC campus.
21. What conclusions can you make about urban vs. rural abundance, richness, and
diversity on UNCC campus?
The abundance, richness, and diversity of the rural areas is higher than the urban areas.
The abundance of the rural areas has the widest disparity of the three categories, with
richness being the next widest, followed by diversity. There are many animals that can
be seen in both the urban and rural areas, but there are also very many that are only
seen in one or the other. Geese and nuthatches are two animals that were only seen in
urban areas. Eastern Bluebird, Eastern Towhee, and the Downy Woodpecker are all
animals that were spotted in the rural area but not the urban areas. We observe this
disparity between biodiversity and it tells us that certain animals may be more picky as to
where they either want to or can settle into an environment and create a habitat.
22. Why would your results impact ecological research and issues? Cite sources to back up
your claims.
The results of this study are important because it measures the ecological state of not
just this campus but this area as a whole. Various types of birds were found by all the
groups conducting this study. Birds tend to be highly receptive to changes in the
environment and this makes them valuable bio-indicators.(
Das, 2016
) The continuation
of studies like this on college campuses can provide valuable information about how
abundance, diversity, and richness of species are being affected over time
23. Suggest one other experiment we could do to confirm our results or improve accuracy:
We could have placed cameras throughout the areas we intended to study that recorded
around the clock for an extended period of time. This would improve the accuracy of our
experiment and possibly confirm our results because the new experiment not only
spends more time observing but spends time observing at various times of day.
References:
Please format all references correctly and consistently for in-text citations used.
Fahrig, L., & Rytwinski, T. (2009). Effects of Roads on Animal Abundance: an Empirical Review
and Synthesis.
Ecology and Society
,
14
(1). http://www.jstor.org/stable/26268057
Kallimanis, Athanasios S., et al. “How Does Habitat Diversity Affect the Species-Area
Relationship.” Global Ecology and Biogeography, vol. 17, no. 4, 2008, pp. 532–38,
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https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2008.00393.x.
Cesarz, Simone, et al. “Tree Species Diversity Versus Tree Species Identity: Driving Forces in
Structuring Forest Food Webs as Indicated by Soil Nematodes.” Soil Biology & Biochemistry,
vol. 62, 2013, pp. 36–45, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2013.02.020.
POZSGAI, G. A. B. O. R., BAIRD, J. O. H. N., LITTLEWOOD, N. I. C. K. A., PAKEMAN, R. O.
B. I. N. J., & YOUNG, M. A. R. K. R. (2015). Long-term changes in ground beetle
(Coleoptera: Carabidae) assemblages in Scotland. Ecological Entomology, 41(2), 157–167.
https://doi.org/10.1111/een.12288
Chakraborty, P., Sengupta, A., Mojumder, A., Biswas, A., Mazumder, S., Biswas, M., Halder,
M., Cakraborty, S., Dey, S., Samadder, A., & Ghosh, P. (2018). Comparative assessment of
foraging strategies in ants: A preliminary experimental study. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF
EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH AND REVIEW, 15, 1–4.
https://doi.org/10.52756/ijerr.2018.v15.001
EXAMPLE
Roth, M. S. (2014). The engine of the reef: photobiology of the coral-algal symbiosis.
Frontiers in Microbiology
,
5
, 422.
Appendix:
Attach a picture of the raw data collection and hypothesis you wrote during week 1 of the Animal
Sightings lab. Give the images appropriate figure numbers and captions!
Table #3
Raw data collected from animal sighting lab, Species are on the left side, amount of
sighting tallied are on the right side
Image #1
Hypothesis from pre-animal sightings lab