Today you will collect data on the diversity of woody plants in Shikellamy State Park.

Begin by marking out a 10X50 meter quadrat. Then, carefully determine the species of trees that your quadrat contains. This requires that you fill out a woody plant data sheet for each different tree species (you need not do this in the field). Next, enumerate the individuals (larger than 3" DBH) of each species and record them in the table below.

This is a common means of comparing diversity between different sites. It requires that the site be sampled randomly or completely and that the organisms occupy the same scale. Use the numbers that you generated above and calculate the diversity of your site.

Shannon Diversity = -SUM[(Pi)*(log Pi)]

where Pi = number of individuals within species i/grand total number of individuals

Now, record the total number of species (not individuals) in the 10X10 meter plots at both ends of your 10X50 meter quadrat. Use this to explore and use the species-area relationship. Pool all of your data to do this.

Create a graph that uses your data. Pool the 10X50 plots to indicate the total number of different species for a 2X10³meter plot. Graph these on a chart with x=log area (in meters squared) and y = number of species. Use your plot to estimate the total number of tree species in Shikellamy State Park (total area about 2.5X10⁵ meters² ). Do this operation in Excel and turn in the graph, the diversity index, and your woody plant data sheets on Tuesday.