To investigate the effect of trampling on the frequency of creeping moss - Evaluation

Limitations: My biggest limitation is the snow that had fallen that day. This made the creeping moss hard to see. I would expect this to make my results lower than expected. This is because if you can’t see the moss, you can’t count it unless you were to remove it with your hands which would have an impact on it because you could be pulling them out of their roots without intention to. There were also areas with more snow on it so you it was harder to see the creeping moss in some areas than it was in others. To avoid this, you can do the experiment on a clear and sunny day. If you can see the creeping moss it is easier to count it and therefore gives you better more accurate results. The snow causes the soil to freeze which makes it hard to take soil pH readings because it is hard to collect the soil. This would make the actual reading closer to neutral because I must use more ionised water so that the pH meter can take the reading. To improve this you can collect the soil at a different day. With more soil you can out in an equal amount of ionised water into the solution to take the reading and make it fair.

My second ranked limitations were the weather conditions. This is because it was very cold and hard to work efficiently. You begin to rush to try and get out of the cold. I would expect this to make my results less accurate but still just as reliable. This may have made my results fluctuate a lot more then they should have. To avoid this we should have done this experiment at a different time of the year, where it is warm and there is no need to rush. With the day being sunny, you would want to stay outside to enjoy the weather conditions and enjoy the activity. Therefore making my results less fluctuated then they should have been.

My third ranked limitations were bumps on the hill. This is because when you were to put the soil pin in it would go a lot further down then it should. This would make my results higher than expected because it would increase soil depth. To avoid this I would have to go to a different area of the hill where there are no bumps. This would require a lot of planning since there aren’t many areas.

• Anomalous results are results that do not fit in with the rest of the data. They usually don’t fit in because of an external cause. I had quiet a few anomalous results because of the snow and limitations. Other reasons could be that I had started from the very start of the footpath so there is more soil depth there because of less trampling.
• Accuracy is how close the results are to the predicted results according to research. My results were accurate except had a lot of anomalous results. The snow on the ground made my soil depth readings inaccurate it required more force to push it in and I would be reading off the measurements from the snow to the rock bed and not from the soil to the rock bed. This would make my results higher than expected.
• Reliability is how many times you have repeated the experiment for better results. I had repeated it 3 times for each variable so made my results reliable. The figures I had were in a reasonably close range to each other and the mean, so my results were reasonably accurate.

My conclusions are not sound because of the limitations I had to face. These limitations had a huge impact on the actual results. My results are not accurate because I had done an interrupted transect which had missed out 3/5ths of the entire distance from the footpath to the area that wasn’t trampled.