Catching Up

So as some have noticed, I am awful about not making these posts as often as I should. I'm not much of a blogger (I generally don't have much more interaction with technology than I have to when it comes to social media). That being said, I also haven't had much to say. The short summary is that collecting amphibian data was not going well at all. Though I could see frogs (and took a number of photographs that will eventually make their way onto this page, as soon as I can sort and edit them from my phone and camera), almost no frogs actually showed up in any of my samples. I have actually felt pretty bad about that, since it seems that most if not all of my classmates have completed sampling and are well into their analysis of their data, and yet I haven't even collected any usable data. I have been going out at least once or twice a week, spending 5 or 6 hours at a time in the field trying to catch anything I can use, but it just didn't pan out. In response to that, my topic has changed from amphibians to spiders (a last minute switch that has left me scrambling to restart and do a lot of things in a short amount of time). Last night I went out with my lab partner and we were able to sample two transects each at the P2 and Control site. The P2 site had an exceptional number of spiders, and I was relieved to finally have some data. The Control site had significantly less data, with only 3 spiders turning up between the two transects. This isn't such a bad thing, though it is a curious result as one might expect there to be more spiders in the Control site than in the other sites. I still need to do a lot of research on spiders, sampling methods, and things of that sort, but again, I am quite pressed for time (between this course and several tests and papers coming up in the next two weeks, I probably won't sleep much more than I did last week, averaging about an hour and a half per night). Last night I finally received an email to download the JMP program for statistics, though I had sent the request for it Wednesday, and everyone else got their email within a few minutes, an hour tops. I don't know why mine didn't come until last night, but I ended up passing out before I had time to play with my data. That is on the agenda for today, as well as the research for spider sampling methods.

Tonight however, I have different plans. I am attempting to organize a group spider sampling event, in which anybody that shows up will help us search for spiders for a given time at each site within a given location. I need any help that I can get, so if you are reading this and have some spare time tonight around 7, please send me an email at ksullins@email.com. I'm ironing out some details for that this afternoon, but after yesterday's success at P2, I am hopeful that this is going to be equally as effective. A quick note, if you have a flashlight or two, the brighter the better, bring it. We will be using them to try and reflect light off of spider webs and spider silk threads along the ground and trees. I wish I had more information at this time, but I will release more information as it becomes available.