The purpose of our research was to investigate how the biodiversity of soil samples from urban gardens can differ between non-native and native soil. Native plants usually have greater biodiversity, as their factors like pH and available soil nutrients tend to be higher (Funk et al, 2008) and (Nielsen et al, 2015).  The goal for our research is to inform the garden of the functionality and health of their soil so that they can maximize plant growth and production. This is important because the community relies on the food grown in the garden, and in economically challenged areas, nutritious food is hard to come by for cheap.  

For our soil collection, we wanted to make a real impact to those in our community. On Thursday September 5th, we travel to a local garden, The Lincoln Sharing Garden, and had conversations with the farmers, which allowed us to get a real insight into how important our data is to them and how it would give back to the amazing work they are doing. Using a Lamotte Sampler pictured below, we collected several samples of soil from two different locations within the community garden. This led to our two conditions, non-native and native soil.