1. After loading the spreadsheet, notice that the cursor is on the cell for unit of area (cell H1). Density will be calculated in the same units that the data are entered in. For example, if you entered your data in meters, density will be calculated as number of individuals per square meter. With large organisms such as trees, it may be more practical to convert this to number of organisms per hectare or per acre instead of per square meter. Since one hectare is 10000 square meters, the density calculation needs to be multiplied by 10000. This is the number that is entered in cell H1. If your measurements were in millimeters and you wanted your calculations to be per square meter, you would enter 1000000 here because there are 1000000 square millimeters in one square meter. Note - the computer will display 1000000 as 1E+06.
Your measurements should all be in meters. If they are not in meters, convert the m to meters. The value in cell H1 should be 10000.
2. Type in the name of the first species in cell G4. Sugar Maple has been entered in the example below (Figure 1). Some example names may already be entered on the spreadsheet. These can be deleted. If you do not know the name of the species, you can use numbers or you can make up a name.
3. Move to cell H4 and enter the frequency for that species. Frequency is the number of random points at which the species was found at least once. Do not convert the frequency value to a proportion or a percentage. In the example below (Figure 1), Sugar Maples were found at 7 of the random points, so a 7 was typed in cell H4.
4. Move to J4 and enter the distance for the first individual of that species. In the example, the first Sugar Maple tree was 3.1 meters from the random point.
Figure 1. Sample data entered into the Point-Quarter.xls spreadsheet.
5. Underneath the distance, enter the diameter of the first individual (in J5).
6. Move to K4 and enter the distance to the second individual and then enter its diameter in K5.
7. Repeat this procedure until all measurements for the first species have been entered.
8. Move to G6 and enter the name of the second species.
9. Enter its frequency, distances and diameters. Repeat these steps until all of the data have been entered.
10. The results of the computer calculations can be viewed by pressing control-home.
11. Save your spreadsheets with the data that you have entered on your local hard disk. Click Save As, choose a folder and give the file a name.
If you used the Excel Viewer, you will not be able to save the spreadsheet. Instead, copy the spreadsheet to a word processor document and then save the document.