Joel Robinson

LAB #5
TITLE: ECOLOGY – QUADRAT METHOD OF SAMPLING

AIM: to investigate the distribution of species in a particular habitat

APPARATUS/MATERIALS: vegetative area, quadrat (length 0.5 m), notepad, pencil, ruler.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:A species is a group of organisms that can reproduce with

one another in nature and produce fertile offspring.Environment,is the complex of physical,
chemical, and biotic factors that act upon an organism or an ecological community and
ultimately determine its form and survival.Habitat is the area and resources used by a particular
species (the habitat of a species) or an assemblage of animals and plants together with their
abiotic environment.Population is a group of individuals of the same species within a
community. A community is an interacting group of various species in a common location.An
ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather
and landscapes, work together to form a bubble of life. A quadrat is a frame, traditionally square,
used in ecology, geography and biology to isolate a standard unit of area for study of the
distribution of an item over a large area.

METHOD: Grass and Plants Vegetation area.

Tossed quadrat ten times

RESULTS:

species cover and species frequency

Specie Number Of Individuals / Percentage Cover In Each Quadrat Species Species Species
s Density/ Cover Frequency /
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total of #of /% %
All organisms
Quadrat per m2
s
90% 30% 30% 30% 85 40 20 30 50 5% 410% 41 m2 1% 100%
grass % % % % %
Specie 30% 5% 10 1 46% 4.6 m2 0.4% 40%
sA %
Black 5 1 2 8 0.8 m2 0.3% 30%
ants
Red 3 3 0.3 m2 0.3% 10%
ants
Specie 10% 10% 1 m2 1% 10%
sB
Specie 10% 10% 1 m2 1% 10%
sC
Specie 10% 10% 10% 30% 3 m2 0.3% 30%
sD
Specie 7% 10 1 90% 108% 10.8 m2 0.4% 40%
sE % %
beetle 1 1 2 0.2 m2 0.2% 20%
Specie 20 20 40% 4 m2 0.2% 20%
sF % %
Specie 80 80% 8 m2 8% 10%
sG %

CALCULATꞮON
Quadrat area

Total area sampled by 10 quadrats

density of 1 species
𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 # 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑚𝑠
𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑠
=Species E 108/10=10.8 m2

Frequency of one species

Number of quadrats its found in/number of quadrats=Species G 1/10 x 100=10%

Species cover of 1 species

Total % of coverage/number of quadrats=Species G 80/10=8%

DꞮSCUSSꞮON:
The quadrat was very useful in giving an idea of density and distribution of species in the area?
The quadrat was very useful because it helped give us a rough estimate of how many
organisms were in the quadrat all though we did not know how many there were.Yes they are
because without the use of population density and cover species t would be nearly impossible to
count all of the organisms in the quadrat.It is more efficient to make and rough estimate.Other
methods of sampling we could have used are:Systematic sampling,Cluster sampling,Stratified
sampling and Judgment (or Purposive) Sampling.

LꞮMꞮTATꞮON: An error which could of occurred because of the environment is the rain
which could have scared the insects away
SOURCES OF ERROR:Quadrats that are too large, too small or spaced inappropriately often
result in errors.Randomly spaced quadrats that are too small might miss too many individuals,
resulting in under-representative estimates of population size.

CONCLUSION: We have successfully determined the distribution of species in a particular

habitat. As can be seen from the calculations above we captured grass all ten times in each
quadrat .Both red and black ants species there weren't a lot of them.In this experiment using the
quadrat we did not find a lot of species except for grass so the distribution of species in a
particular habitat was very low