Methods for Data Analysis and Figure Preparation
¢ You will focus on species richness data (in Excel file Lab 4 Species Richness Data) from seines completed in the May River from 2016 to 2018. Remember that there were many seining sites sampled in the May River around our passive acoustic stations (i.e. 9M, 14M, and 37M). You will focus only on species richness data around stations 9M, 14M, and 37M.
¢ You will focus your analysis on species richness/m2 . This approach allows us to standardize for the different areas of the seines, since no seine area is equal because of the different topographies of creeks and tidal pools that are visible during low tide. In fisheries, this analysis is known as catch per unit effort (CPUE).
¢ You will create three separate figures for each acoustic station (9M, 14M, and 37M). For each station, you will plot the date (as the x-axis) versus # species / m2 (as the y-axis) for each species. These figures should be created as X-Y scatter plots with straight lines and markers. This graph type provides an elegant way of visualizing when species richness is highest. Please make sure to include labeled x-y axes; however, you do not need to include a title. Please make sure that your font size is at least 10. Please make your maximum y-axis equal to 0.60 with increments of 0.10.
¢ Determine the average #species / m2 for each station (i.e. 9M, 14M, and 37M). Try using the average function in Excel. ¢ Insert each figure into a Word document. Below the figure, provide a figure legend (Figure 1 ¦, Figure 2 ¦, Figure 3 ¦). Each figure legend should (i) provide a general description of the figure; (ii) discuss when (i.e. what months) species richness is highest at each station and discuss some hypotheses on why this time period has the highest diversity; and (iii) provide the average #species / m2 for each station in the corresponding figure leg
