1

ECOLOGY I WORKSHEET

Name: _______Theodore Ashley__________ Lab Day/Time: ___10:10____________________

***During this four-week lab, you will do a project with your group in which you choose a site
for your project. This site may be on campus if you choose. Please consider your site
carefully; our main goal is to keep our students safe.

Techniques for Evaluating Population Size and Diversity

Species Richness and Density

Line Transect

Table 1. Actual number and description of each species in your total sample.
Species Species Description Number of each
Number (Bean type, or shape, size, and color) species

1 Black beans 52
2 Kidney Beans 23
3 White beans 35
4 Chickpeas 16
5 Black eyed peas 36
Total 162
*If you have more than 5 types of beans, choose the 5 types to work with.

Table 2: Line Transect: Species Richness or Diversity

Species No. Located on No. Located on No. Located on No. Located on Total No.
(Bean Type) Line Transect 1 Line Transect 2 Line Transect 3 Line Transect 4 on all
four lines
Black 1 0 0 0 1
Kidney 0 2 0 0 2
White 0 1 1 0 2
Black Eyed 0 2 0 0 2
Peas
Chickpea 2 0 2 0 4
Total No. 5
species
Total No. of 3 5 3 0 11
organisms

1. Choose any one of your line transects and compare the number of species and number of
organisms for that one line to the total for all four lines. What did you learn from this
exercise?
 2

Belt Transect

Table 3: Belt Transect: Species Richness or Diversity

Species No. Located in No. Located in No. Located in No. Located in Total No.
(Bean Type) Belt Transect 1 Belt Transect 2 Belt Transect 3 Belt Transect 4 on all
four belts
Black beans 9 1 11 6 27
White 4 2 1 1 8
Black eyed 3 2 5 1 11
peas
Chickpea 3 2 3 0 8
Kidney 2 0 1 1 4
Total No. 5
species
Total No. of 58
organisms

2. Choose any one of your belt transects and compare the number of species and number of
organisms for that one belt transect to the total for all four belt transects. What did you learn
from this exercise?

Table 4: Belt Transect: Species Density

Species Density Belt Density Belt Density Belt Density Belt Density for all
(Bean Type) Transect 1 Transect 2 Transect 3 Transect 4 four belts
combined
Black Beans 0.1875 0.020833 0.229166 0.125 0.140625
White 0.0833 0.04166 0.020833 0.020833 0.0415
Black Eyed 0.0625 0.04166 0.104166 0.020833 0.05729
peas
Chickpeas 0.0625 0.04166 0.0625 0 0.0415
Kidney 0.04166 0 0.020833 0.020833 0.0208315
Total 0.3020825
density of all
organisms
 3

3. To calculate the density of each species for all four belts combined, you cannot simply add
all four densities! Why not? Choose any one of your belt transects and compare the density
of each species for that one transect to the total for all four belt transects. What did you learn
from this exercise?

You cannot just add them because that wouldn’t represent the density overall, you have to
average them to get the general overall density.
That the samples are a semi-accurate way to estimate the number of animals in a region, but
they do not provide as complete of a picture as counting the entire population. But it makes
sense over large regions were counting the entire species number would be impractical and
very expensive to do.

Quadrat Sample

Construct Table 5 below. Include the following information:

• How many species and how many of each species did you find in the largest quadrat?
• What was the density of each of these species?

Table 5:

Species (Bean Quadrat Density of

Type) population each
Black Beans 15 0.3125
White 14 0.29166
Black Eyed 13 0.27083
peas
Chickpeas 4 0.0833
Kidney 12 0.25
Total number 58 1.2083
of all
organisms
Number of 5
Species in
quadrat
sample
 4

4. How do these data compare to the data obtained by the line and belt transects? What did
you learn from this analysis? (If you would like to expand this particular study, assess the
number of species and species density for each of the open areas on your board. There
should be nine of them).
The total number of organisms in the quadrat and the belt sample remained the same but it
was vastly higher than the line sample. The densities of the quadrat sample don’t quite line
up in the way that you would want them to. Some values are far off from what the quadrat
sample displayed. But generally, it was a relatively good estimate because the quadrat
sample displayed a similar population total to the belt estimate.

Mark-Recapture
 5

Calculate the following and put into a table you will construct below (Table 6). You will do a
population estimate at least 4 times. In this table, show how many lima beans were marked the
first time, how many total you caught each time for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th times, and of those,
how many were marked. Then use those numbers to calculate population estimate and percent
error, also in the table.

Population Estimate = (total number organisms caught and marked the first time * the total
number organisms caught second time) / the number of marked organisms caught the second
time

Percent (%) Error for population estimate = (population estimate – actual population) / actual
population

Table 6:

Round # unmarked # of marked Population Percent error

beans captured beans captured estimate
1 25 n/a n/a n/a
2 18 4 138 15%
3 16 5 105 35%
4 15 8 72 56%
5 15 7 79 51%
 6

5. How accurate are your estimates? Would the estimates be more accurate if you marked more
organisms in your cup?
The first two estimates were accurate, while the next estimates were rather inaccurate. Yes
likely the accuracy would increase with the number of organisms marked because the initial
sample would be larger and the population estimate would be larger then.

6. Do you think you could really calculate the percent error of a population estimate in nature?
Why or why not?
No, because unless an accurate count of the population is taken you will never know the actual
value for the population and over expansive areas it would be too expensive to actually count all
the animals.

7. Why should you have a short interval of time between the first and second collections?

The interval should be short because the short time helps prevent errors in data that can occur in
between intervals that would cause a change in the outcome of the results, additionally to keep
the results the animals from moving into a different region or such, for accuracy.
 7

8. What did you learn from using this technique?

That the simple method to calculate the number of animals in a region, however the accuracy
can range greatly from fairly accurate, nearly spot on, to way off. It is nearly impossible to count
an entire population, especially if the range is large, so it is a fairly good method to use.