Analysis

As we finished the project, we learned and created a diversity index in class. You can view it by clicking on the Biodiversity column at the bottom. First, we added up the number of animals we catch, which in this case, is 133. And we time it by 132 because we subtract one to eliminate outliers. Then we add the number of each species and times it by n-1. n is the number you add up to, and we subtract one to eliminate outliers. For example, in Green Frog, we add the number of green frogs we find, which is three, and we time it by-1, which is 3-1 equals 2. We use three times two, so it equals six. Then we add all the numbers from the n(n-1) column, 1646. We use 1646 to divide 132 to get the diversity index of 10.67. We didn't count the springtails in because they are dominant species, and if we count them in, it will change our data dramatically 

Here is a picture of the calculation:

As we can see from the pass data from the diversity index, we have some interruptions listed from the pass data. But besides those, we can see that the trends for the past years are similar. We would have a year that has a high diversity index. However, suddenly, it will drop by a reasonable amount and stay somewhat stable. And it will increase dramatically for one year. We can start looking at the data from 2018, which is 7.55, 2019 is 8.04, 2020 is 5.19, and 2021 is 8.45. And 2022, this year, it increased to 10.65. We can ignore 2020 because COVID hits, and it will have an impact on this study for sure. It is reasonable to assume that the diversity number will be lower for the following year. 

And for the abiotic test data, click on abiotic totals to view.

The PH scale of the pond has been stable and close to neutral for the past four years. A few fluctuations but nothing changed by a significant amount. This indicates that Ph-wise, our pond is doing pretty well. We assume the Ph will be somewhere around 7 for the following year.

For dissolved oxygen, we have two N/A data means that something went wrong during those two years, so we do not count them. But in general, the pond's dissolved oxygen has been rising for the past four years, which is a good sign because animal now has more oxygen to use. Anything above 6 is excellent. It is hard to predict the result for next year because dissolved oxygen is highly dependent on the amount of sunlight we get and the Turbidity of water.

Turbidity for the past few years has been pretty stable, but it is getting better for this year as we have an average of 15.3. Interestingly, they got a 0 for 2018 because we got a much higher count in the year before and after that. So either something went wrong, or our water just suddenly became crystal clear for that one year.

The numbering for phosphate is increasing continuously, which is not a good sign. For example, it went from 1.34 to 2.04. This indicates that our pond is getting more phosphate leaking into it. As we mentioned before, the lower the number, the better. Therefore, a high numbering of phosphate indicates that our pond is somewhat polluted. The increase in phosphate number might continue for the following year. 

The nitrate count has been 0 for the most year except for 2020 and 2019. It is back to 0 for 2021 and 2022. So we would expect it to be 0 for the following year still.

(All photos created by Zack Cong)