4.Treatment of results

1. Use your results to give a brief description of each of the two communities you have sampled. Identify any zonation of vegetation and correlate this with environmental factors (soil depth, distance from shore, likelihood of disturbance etc.)

2. Determine which species are likely to be ecological generalists and which are specialists. You should bear in mind that on such a narrow stretch of shoreline, your results may be misleading. In this case, it is probably more likely that species occupying more of the shore are specialists. The trend would be reversed if a much longer transect were constructed.

3. Comment on the observed patterns on niche overlap. Is there any difference in overlap between perceived generalists and perceived specialists, or between a specialist and another specialist, or between a generalist and another generalist?

 

 

4. Are these patterns relatively constant across both habitats sampled? or are there differences which may be significant. Compute a simple test statistic (such as chi-squared) to examine this.

5. What other factors may be affecting the observed patterns of distribution of vegetation ?

 

 

Additional comments

It should be borne in mind that this particular investigation assesses the impact of one factor (distance from shoreline) without controlling any of the myriad environmental factors which may also be exerting effects on the community. Your results should be seen in this light. HOME