USING QUADRATS Flashcards
what is a habitat
a place where an organism lives
what is the distribution of an organism?
where an organism is found
what is a quadrat?
a quadrat is a square enclosing a known area (1m^2) to compare how common and organism is in two sample areas
what’s the first step for using quadrats?
place a 1m squared quadrat on the ground at a random point within the first sample area
what’s the second step after placing the quadrat?
count all the organisms in that quadrat
what’s the 3rd step?
repeat steps 1 and 2 which are placing the quadrat randomly and counting all the organisms within it
what’s the 4th step?
work out the mean:
total number of organisms counted
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number of quatrats
EG if someone counted 154 daisies in 7 quadrats there will be 22 per metre squared
what’s the 5th step?
repeat the first method for a second sample area of a different environment
what do you finally do?
compare the two means
how do you work out the estimated population size?
work out the mean number per METRES SQUARED
then multiply by the total area
students used a quadrat each with an area of 0.5m^2
they found a mean of 10.5 daisies per quadrat
the field has an area of 800m^2
what is the estimated population?
- 5 * 2 = 1 M^2
- 5 * 2 = 21 daisies per M^2
800*21= 16,800 daisies
