Discussion
After
reviewing our data and analysis, we have discovered that we did not prove our
hypothesis with our experiment. The lack of a significant difference between wet
sites, and wet and dry sites show that our hypothesis was completely wrong. To
see if perhaps the drop in mold levels was because of the water differences in
site 3 and 4, we performed a t-test between all of the wet sites mold levels and
all of the dry sites mold levels. With a t value of 1.053 and a t alpha value of
2.021 we found no statistical significance. Although this proves our hypothesis
wrong, we can now rule out two possible reasons for the mold drop in site 4-soil
texture as well as moisture. This means that this drop must be due to another
environmental conditions observed in the biota survey such as levels of
Magnesium, Algae, Phosphorous, Manganese, Iron, Aluminum, Worms, Bacteria, pH,
yeast or plant diversity. Perhaps there were variables beyond our control that
could have affected our experiment, thus causing these results. However, further
research could help prove what causes this drastic drop in mold population in
site 4 compared to sites 3 and 4.