The Open Door Web Site : IB Biology : ICT in Biology : Using MS Excel as a Database : Exercise 3 Pitfall Trap Data

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Using MS Excel as a Database

Preparing your database
Using the Custom option
Exercises 1 and 2

ICT in Biology Index

Using MS Excel as a Calculator
Using MS Excel : Going Further with Graphs

IB Biology Homepage

Exercise 1: Method

Start with full database
Select day 9 from B1
In G1 select Number Filters
Enter 1 in the "is greater than" pop-up box:
OK

Answer: 4 volunteers

Start with full database
Select day Number Filters from C1
Enter 10 in the "is greater than" pop-up box:
From A1 select the numbers listed one by one

Answer: volunteer 14 has 5 entries. The days are not consecutive

A Pitfall Trap � Shirley Burchill

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ICT IN BIOLOGY

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Using MS Excel 2013 as a Database

Exercise 3

Pitfall Traps Database

This data base shows the results for invertebrates falling in pitfall traps at the end of June over three successive years. The traps were set at 5m intervals along transect lines running from a lawn into an area of woodland. They were left over a 24h period and the animals were collected identified and counted. The animals were sorted into Families or Classes.

The Pitfall Traps Site � Alan Damon

TrapsDB .xls

The data is arranged by year, team, trap and then each taxon (family or class).
Each time an organism is recorded a P is entered for "present".

Highlight the cells with the column headings. Go to Data and Filter.

To verify which are the dominant groups of animals

Click on each column in turn and select P. The totals are given in the bottom left hand corner. After you have finished with a column to display all the data you must go to the filter for that column again and Select All.

To determine how a group is distributed along the transect.

Pick a dominant group. Select P in the filter. Then go to the Traps column and select each trap in turn. Once again the totals are given in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

Enter the values for each trap in a table under the spread sheet, or open another spread sheet. Then plot a bar chart of the distribution of that species.

To determine how the distribution of a group varies over a space and time

Try the same thing again but this time find out how the numbers caught for the group varied over the three year period. You will need to filter the group of animals first (select P). Then filter the trap number (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6). Finally, select each year.

The number of teams collecting data varied how are you going to compare them fairly?

Diversity

Inspect the data trap by trap to determine how many different types of groups are represented in each trap each year or over the three years.

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