Methodolgy

• Identify those species that you will be using in this investigation.


• Construct a transect, starting at the shoreline and moving perpendicularly to the upper shore.


• Divide the transect line into intervals each five metres in length. The five metre length of the transect line interval represents one side of a virtual quadrat measuring 5 metres by 5 metres.


• Count the number of individuals of each selected species present in the virtual quadrat you have constructed. Record your results. Repeat this procedure until the upper shore area is reached.

 

 

• Repeat this procedure for a total of three transects at each site..

• Calculate Levin's standardised measure of niche breadth for each species and Morisita's Index of niche overlap to calculate niche overlap between each pair of species.

Once you have calculated the niche breadths for each species, you would be in a position to identify which of these are specialist and which are generalist. You would now therefore be able to look for different adaptations to the same environment in both specialists and generalists.

 

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