By Charlotte Bagnall

Use a line transect and appropriate quadrats to collect

quantitative and qualitative data to show how changing

abiotic factors affect the distribution of organisms along

the transect.

I predict that the further away that we are from the shaded area, the more plant species we will find because there will be more moisture in the ground which will give the plants more nutrients. Furthermore, there will be more sunlight to help the plant species to grow.

• A quadrat• 10m tape measure• Area where there are a verity of different plant species• Soil thermometer• Light meter

Step one – Find an area of area outside where there are lots of plant species

Step two – Line a 10m tape measure laid along the grass making a marking in the ground by digging a little chunks of soil out from the ground. Make sure it is large enough to see.

Step three - Place the quadrat on the ground at each meter that is marked on the tape measure.

Step four – Now that it is placed, count the number of all the different plant species that are there and plot down in your results table

Find the grass area Place down

the tape measure

Count the number of plant species

Name the plants correctly

Measure the sunlight

Measure the ground temperature

Collect the soil

Risk assessment

Hazard Risk

Safety

Precaution

How to prevent it Rating

The quadrat

Could get hit over the head

by it

Lay the quadrat on the ground when not in

use.

Got to matron for an ice pack

1/10

Allergies

You could have allergies to the plant species

Make sure to take you’re your

mediation outside with you

Get to matron for medical help 7/10

Wooden Logs

Could trip us on large logs and

break something

Make you’re your just

walking not running

Go to matron for ice pack or if

leg is cut, a plaster

6/10

TableDistance Petri

Dish (g)Wet

mass (g)Dry

mass (g)Soil

temp (‘c)Soil PH Light

0 48.4 53.6 52.43 23 7 0.03

1 66.6 78.3 75.82 21 7 0.04

2 46.5 59.3 55.87 23 7 0.01

3 46.1 56.9 54.57 24 7 0.00

4 67.9 54.3 52.7 18 7 0.03

5 70.1 83.4 79.94 20 7 0.03

6 92.1 114.0 108.09 19 7 0.05

7 67.3 84.8 80.54 23 7 0.03

8 7.3 19.0 15.69 24 7 0.01

9 7.1 18.7 15.38 22 7 0.04

10 42.7 66.7 61.18 24 7 0.03

Distance (m) Species

0 3

1 3

2 4

3 1

4 4

5 5

6 3

7 4

8 1

9 1

10 1

A graph to show the relationship between amount of plant species and the distance along the line transect

0123456

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Distance

Pla

nt s

peci

es

In conclusion, my results show, that the plant species corresponded with the soil temperature which meant when the soil was cooler, the more plant species there were. I found this rather strange as it goes against phophotosynthesis. This is when the plants need more light. Therefore I feel that I would need to of retest this again.

EvaluationEvaluation

We were able to gather our results in this investigation because there were a good verity of different plant species.

What didn’t work so well was as it was our first time trying to identify the plant types, there is a risk that we may have got the plant identification wrong.

If we were to do this experiment again, I would make try to find the plant species from a different area of the field to see if my results would be different. Also I would repeat this two or three more times.

We didn’t have to make any amendments/ modifications throughout the experiment.