Question

You've been tasked with surveying ferns in a 25square mile area. The group paying you to do the survey wants the approximate population of sword ferns found in the area. You and your partner (who is not a biologist) need to complete the survey in only 3 days. Design an survey protocol that will allow you to get an fairly accurate sword fern count of a 25 square mile area. (hint, you don't have time to hike the whole 25 square miles to count every fern!).

Answer 1

It can be determined by following ways:

1. First of all count the sword ferns in a small defined area.

2. Repeat the counting process randomly at different places in same defined area. For example if first day you have counted the sword fern in 0.1 square mile area then conunt the sword fern again in 0.1 square mile area but randomly at different place on second day.

3. Repeat the counting process on third day again but randomly at different place.

4. Take the average of three readings and relate the readings with whole 25 square mile area. For example if the average of three countings is 25 then multiply 25 with 250 that will give the approximate number of sword ferns in 25 square mile area.