All of the GCSE specifications make some reference to trees and woodland as part of their units on ecosystems. This is usually around local factors influencing ecosystem distribution and the interaction between biotic and abiotic components.

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Only the AQA specification suggests using woodlands as part of your physical familiar fieldwork enquiry. However, for other specifications, this could be a local pilot or practice investigation, covering specification content in a practical way to help build enquiry skills before their main study.

Fieldwork to investigate woodland ecosystems

Aim: to investigate the health and diversity of two woodland ecosystems.

Location:

Comparison of two areas of woodland ecosystems, such as deciduous vs coniferous or managed (coppiced) vs mature woodland or monoculture vs natural. These areas can be small scale.

Sampling strategy: This will depend on your area and scale of woodland, but the simplest method is to use tape measures to set up a random grid of a representative size with random coordinates for sample points.  For more information on sampling use Sampling – The Basics – Field Studies Council

Questions: 

• How can we make sure we are counting individual plants accurately? Is it each flower, each leaf, or where each plant emerges from the ground?
• Do trailing or plants that grow on runners get counted more than once in the quadrat?
• How can we standardise our abiotic measurements? Where should we take the measurements? Centre of the quadrat? Light intensity at ground level or plant height?
• How can we analyse this data? Should we calculate, mean, medians or modes?

Method: Set up a random sample in the first area and use quadrats to assess species richness and abundance.

Use ID guides such as Woodland plants guide – Field Studies Council or useful free apps such as PictureThis – Plant Identifier App | Plant Identification Online or Pl@ntNet identify to identify species of plants. In each area also measure the edaphic (soil) and climatic factors.

Data collection:

An example data collection table could look like this:

Considerations:

• Ensure the random grid is large enough to be representative of the area of study.
• Aim for a minimum of ten repeats in each contrasting area, this can be spread out across your class.
• In some comparisons it may be helpful to swap in percentage cover of bare ground or depth of leaf litter instead of temperature or soil depth.
• Consider how seasonality will affect not only results but also ease of plant identification.

Data presentation:

Students can calculate the species richness and mean abiotic values to plot simple bar graphs.

For looking at evenness of the species variation, proportional bars or pie charts could be used. Alternatively, as a more innovative representation, a sunburst chart can be used to show species richness and evenness in the same graph, showing the relative abundance and rarity of each plant.

The Geographical Association (GA) has worked closely with the Field Studies Council (FSC) to develop these resources.