Hardwood Lab-Harris, A

.docx

School

Kennesaw State University *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

3370

Subject

Biology

Date

Dec 6, 2023

Type

docx

Pages

4

Uploaded by CorporalPencil4574

Report
Names : Jaiden Outten and Aniyah Harris Hardwood Lab Report Introduction American Beech trees are hardwood deciduous trees located in well-drained upland woods of eastern North America. They are commonly found growing beneath early successional trees, such as pines, in Georgia. Their growth is influenced by biotic factors like intraspecific and interspecific competition as well as abiotic factors like light intensity and soil moisture. Intraspecific competition occurs between members of the same species. It demonstrates the adaptability of the species. Members of distinct species engage in interspecific competition, which might result in the extinction of one species or the specialization of both. An experiment was done at the KSU Arboretum to find interspecific and intraspecific competitions within the different species and the same species using biotic and abiotic factors that influence Beech growth. We hypothesized that higher levels of light intensity being used up by the larger beech hardwood trees cause greater sizes in beech hardwood trees in the KSU Arboretum which give rise to more overlap, larger areas of influence, and lead to more interspecific and intraspecific competition. Higher light intensity is a leading factor in how a beech hardwood tree grows. The smaller trees may not experience the same amount of light intensity and struggle to grow as much as the ones that do. We predicted that the beech hardwood trees with greater diameters receive higher light intensity values than the ones with smaller diameters. We also hypothesized that the distance and diameter of the tree are good indicators that may be a good predictor of intraspecific competition between Beech trees in the KSU Arboretum. With more intraspecific competition, the ratio of the diameter of the beech trees will be higher. The absence of competition: smaller ratios same growth rate however if there is more intraspecific competition then they will not have equal access to resources thus changing the ratio between them. It was predicted that competition is based on the distances. These hypotheses were tested using correlation and regression.
Results Figure 1. Correlation between Diameter of Beech vs. Light Intensity Figure 1 . The results from the correlation analysis indicated a negative correlation between the diameter of the beech tree and the light intensity. The correlation coefficient came up to -0.389, same as the R-value, indicating very little to no correlation between the two variables measured since the value is a lot closer to 0 than +1 or –1. The p-value calculated to 3.19E-05, which indicates that our results are statistically significant, rejecting our hypothesis. As the diameter of the beech trees increases, the light intensity decreases, showing 0 correlation. Figure 2. Relationship between the distance between the beech trees 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00 9.00 10.00 f(x) = 0.1 x + 1.79 R² = 0 Distance vs. Diameter of Beech hardwoods Figure 2. Results from a regression analysis demonstrated that there was a slight correlation between the distance between the beech trees and the diameter of the beech tree (R=0.062). As the Distance between the trees increases, the diameter increases, indicating less intraspecific competition. However, from the regression analysis, we can say that the distance between the trees is not a significant variable that affects the diameter of the trees (F= 0.799574, R-squared 0.0038975). Our hypothesis was that the intercept would be 0 but it was not passed 0 and with a
Your preview ends here
Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version
  • Access to all documents
  • Unlimited textbook solutions
  • 24/7 expert homework help