ABI 150 - Section B - Solidifying Our Methods
In class yesterday, Aja created slides to help us discuss what went well and what didn't go well during our field day, presented the data on what we collected on in our groups from Friday and talked about doing sampling outside the class.
10:02 - Aja then started on her presentation! The first objective of today was to get everyone’s thoughts about what they felt worked and did not work during our field day on Friday.
Worked Well:
The section and subsections were all constructed with ease and worked well
The marking/color system was great and easy to understand
Worked in chunks meaning we took breaks to catch instead of just catching for the whole two hours
Safety measures that were taken were great; wearing sunscreen, staying in the shade, drinking water, taking breaks
The spaces that were sectioned off were a good amount of space to capture
Working in pairs
Were able to obtain good data, good thing we did not need the use of coordinates
Didn’t Work Well:
The wind was making it hard to catch Damselflies
Some wings were damaged
One person just catching, should have two people catch this helps to increase the chances of catching more damselflies
It was hard to catch Damselflies in areas where there was water as people did not want to get wet, needing water boots.
The time that was given to capture Damselflies was not enough
Hard to identify species of Damselflies
Hard to hold Damselflies, the use of forceps can help remedy that
It was hard to use the walkie talkies, it caused a lot of miscommunication
Overall, everyone in the class had the same opinions about what did work well and what didn’t. To combat some of the problems that people had, these were the solutions:
Everyone thought that it was a good idea to start using two nets for catching, if someone does not like to handle bugs just put the net on the ground and for the person who does like to handle them to grab it from the others net.
Waterboots are being ordered, Alejandra made an excel sheet where you can input your shoe sizes. Crystal was also asking some individuals for their shoes size during class
Forceps were ordered to help make it easier to hold damselflies, Marshall mentioned that they should arrive on Monday (if I heard correctly).
To make it easier to identify Damselflies Eric made a google form to help test your IDing capabilities and as well as attached a webpage that explains how to easily identify male and female andromorph and heteromorph Pacific Forktails.
No need for walkie talkies anymore
10:21 - After expressing our opinions on how data sampling went, our second objective was talking about our data collection. To do so we were split up into 4 groups.
Group 1: Alejandra, Cristal, Alan, & Kayla
Group 2: Jay, Arianna, Aja, & Jessica
Group 3: Kendall, Rosie, Eric, Mario, & Kaya
Group 4: Jennifer, Marshall, Caelan, Mia
10:38 - In our groups we discussed how capturing went in our assigned groups during our field day. We then presented our thoughts to the class.
Group 1:
Alejandra mentioned she and her group member caught more males than females in the permanent area. As well mentioned that there were more females in the water, but were hard to get.
In semipermanent habitat there was a balance or half and half of Pacific Forktail and Vivid Dancer species in subsections I and IV in the pink section
Alejandra also mentioned that the spreadsheet was a bit unorganized and hard to monitor. She came up with a solution to fix this issue by modifying the excel sheet to include tabs with the groups e.g. tabs marked rr, ry, bg, br…
Group 2:
Arianna mentioned in her group they captured more females in semipermanent
In Jays group, more males were captured in permanent areas
Jessica captured a good variety of different sexes in semipermanent areas.
Overall they noticed that there was a good sex dispersal in both permanent and semipermanent areas
Group 3:
Kendall mentioned that she and Mario obtained an interesting set of data. In permanent habitat, her group captured more male pacific forktails while in Mario’s they caught more female vivid dancers.
The Pacific Forktails that were caught were mostly found away from the water which raised the questions if we should incorporate mentioning if they were caught away or on the shore
Mentioned if we should incorporate weather like wind speed, temperature, etc. by buying a barometer to measure wind speed or infrared temperature to measure the temp of vegetation. Could use PRISM to access climate data.
Group 4:
Caelan and his group member caught more male pacific forktails, they were in section 2 permanent areas
No longer incorporating perch vs. flying
Mentioned that we should add a third dot to signify that it was recaptured in another area. This way we can know that we did not recapture the same Damselfly and makes it easier to see dispersal.
Mentioned that we should add a third dot to signify that it was recaptured in another area. This way we can know that we did not recapture the same Damselfly and makes it easier to see dispersal.
10:53 - Questioned if it is important to add Western Forktalis to our data. Crystal mentioned that it was probably a Forktail that has recently emerged and no hardened. It would be best to focus just on Pacific Forktails and Vivid Dancers
10:55 - We then discussed briefly how we are going to assess vegetation. The plan is to create one square using PVC pipes for each subsection, so it would be 8 squares, all measuring 10 meters.
It looks like a majority of the class is free on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Some students are hesitant in sampling on the weekends
The plan for weekend sampling is to focus on just one whole section if there are 5-6 individuals going out or 1-2 subsections if there are fewer students.
Mentioned that May 29th, which is a Friday, should be left to do data analysis.
We should stop capturing Damselflies and try to recapture damsels before the 29th
Considered doing capturing intervals, For example, capturing for 20 - 30 min and then taking a 5-10 minute break in between
Should add an additional third dot to signify the week it was captured
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