A student wants to estimate the number of buttercup plants in a field.
The area of the field is 1.5 hectares. 1 hectare =10 000 m2= 10\,000\ \text{m}^2=10000 m2.
The student uses a quadrat with an area of 0.25 m2.
She walks across the field and puts a quadrat down wherever she sees a group of buttercups.
She uses 5 quadrats.
Her results are:
8 12 10 6 9
Use the student's results to estimate the number of buttercup plants in the field.
Explain why the student's estimate is likely to be too high, and describe how she should improve her method.
Suggest when in the year the student should carry out this investigation.
Give a reason for your answer.
109 exam-style questions on OCR GCSE Biology 6.1 Monitoring and maintaining the environment, covering 6.1.1 Field investigation of distribution and abundance, 6.1.2 Human interactions and biodiversity, 6.1.3 Maintaining biodiversity, and 6.1.4 Environmental change and distribution of organisms. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.