The main objective of this investigation is to determine the effect of island size and human disturbance on the diversity and general population size of birds living in and around Lake

Alice. The null hypotheses for this experiment would suggest that (i) human disturbance does not have a detrimental impact on species number or diversity in Lake Alice and (ii) Island size does not effect in any way the number or diversity of birds in Lake Alice. Binoculars were used to locate and record individual species type and frequency over twenty minutes. A human count was also taken to show disturbance (if any). A tape measure was also used to measure the approximate size of each island and its distance from the shoreline. The results collected disproved the null hypothesis; showing that human disturbance (in terms of people number and distance from the shoreline) did in most cases lead to a decrease in species number and diversity in contrast to relatively undisturbed islands. This was shown using numerical values from the Sharon

Hannock. J 1984 The Herons Handbook, Harper and Row Publishers

There were also potentially many other factors which could have affected bird diversity on these islands. For example, the threat of predation (e.g. islands chosen by basking alligators) vegetation type and density, resource availability. This maybe one factor explaining as to why although the west island had higher bird diversity than the middle island. Although it had a relatively high level of human disturbance (in terms of number of people present) its larger area and vegetation (roosting potential) and its own diverse mini ecosystem. This outweighed the threat of human disturbance and means this island is much more favorable for many species, compared to the middle island. These potentially much room for many errors and limitations to occur ¨C which may lead to inaccuracy and irregularity of collected results. In particular, human error can have a detrimental impact on results. For example, it was almost impossible to measure the exact size of each island so an estimate had to be made from up to 15m away. This left huge potential for human error and irregularity/inaccuracy of results. An alternative would have been to travel to the island, this also could also cause problems due to the disturbance factor. It was also difficult to differentiate between some species, especially as some were so small and so far away. For example, it was often difficult to differentiate between the Great and Little Blue Heron ¨C especially if they moved constantly and there was none of the other species to which to contrast it with. This may also have led to inaccurate data collection and an unreliable H value.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Isle Hannock, West Island, Middle Island, Lake Alice, Gray Catbird, East Island, Alice Research, Sharon Index, Alice Binoculars, Isles Larger, human disturbance, lake alice, bird diversity, middle island, species diversity, east island, pi loge pi, distance shore, pi loge, loge pi, distance shoreline, 1 013 21, people distance shore, frequency people distance, 013 21 026,
Approximate Word count = 2176
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)