Hi all,
My bio student experiment draft is due tomorrow, and there are some things I'm worried about.
In the original experiment we used stratified sampling to collect and analyse primary biotic field data (height of tallest stratum and percentage cover) to classify an ecosystem (this was in a dry scherolphyll forest). Our class went on a field trip and collected a bunch of data, and then we had to develop a RQ from that. Our RQ is
What is the correlation between soil pH and percentage cover of trees, measured in a dry sclerophyll forest ecosystem and a mangrove ecosystem? As you can see in the picture our data has virtually no correlation (A is forest and B is mangrove), but my teacher said we could still use this as our RQ. The optimum pH for plant growth is between 5-8%, hence the percentage cover should be higher when the pH is at this point.
I am not sure what to write in the analysis, other than the fact that it doesn't correlate. Getting rid of outliers doesn't help.
In addition, I don't have that much research to back up my initial claim in the rationale as I feel like saying there should be a relationship between pH and percentage cover is a bit of a stretch as there isn't literature that directly supports this, and I've mainly only found gardening websites for optimum soil pH.It's too late to change questions (plus changing a question wouldn't help as all the data we collected doesn't show a correlation).
But I'm also concerned that this RQ doesn't really link to the content matter or our original experiment (which was looking at classifying the ecosystem, whereas we're looking at if there's a relationship between two variables), or the content matter. Any help is appreciated!