An Investigation Of A Relationship Between Species Diversity And Area Of Vegetation Patch

Ecological succession is the process where an ecosystem changes through time after some disturbance. Ecological succession is the major cause of ecological change. During this time, the community begins with few pioneering plants and animals and develops until it becomes stable. Also, it continues so that more and different kinds of organisms can be found in the location which leads to a diverse community (MacMillan 38)

The annual rate of precipitation, and elevational range once generated a strong foundation for a wide diversity of vegetation

There are many factors that account for the changes to the vegetation over time within ecosystems in the British Isles, such as human activity, climate, soil, light availability and intensity and natural disasters. The characteristics of the vegetation that are influenced by these factors are height, distribution, variety of species, adaptations and density of the vegetation. Some of these factors have relatively little influence on the succession development, whereas others have a dramatic influence over a long period of time, such as human activity. These factors, over time, result in the progression of a succession until the climatic climax vegetation is reached. However, sometimes these factors can mean that a plagioclimax is reached,

larger vegetation zones to the way we should understand the ecology of the land scape.

Ecological succession is the slow replacement of an ecological community by another, as one gradually overtakes another. Primary succession is when a landscape previously devoid of life starts to grow small shrubs, and eventually trees. Secondary succession is the replacement of life with more life. A pioneer species is the first species to begin primary succession. Climax communities are achieved in the last stage of succession, remaining unchanged until an outside event

The plants range from dangerous to harmless, from boring to interesting. The plants are very interesting to many people. Here are some of the plants, their information, and what they do. The corals turn into exterior skeletons and over thousands of years, exterior skeletons form thick, ring shaped coral reefs. Also, they colonize the water around the volcanoes. The mangrove forests are home to many animals like heron egrets, and frigate birds. The mangrove trees are one of the toughest trees in the world. The reef is home to lots of animals, and the animals are sea fans, sea worms, and sea sponges. Tawny sharks also hide in the coral caves during the day. The plants make the island lush. From corals to trees to reefs. The mangrove trees are very large, and are home to many animals. The plants make the island very beautiful and colorful. If these plants didn’t exist, then Aldabra would be dull, and not colorful.

In the Everglades these patches of trees or islands of them are an essential piece of the landscape. These islands of trees are seen in both the short and the long hydro period wetland of the Everglades. What these islands start to do is provide a web of shade and they gives opportunity for these forest-dwelling plants and animals to perform important biodiversity and nutrient cycling functions (Gained et al. 2002, Ross 2009). Tree islands can be all different sizes, in the short hydro period area these sizes can vary from anything of two to three trees to as big as several hectares with hundreds of trees. The size of these tree islands have a direct effect on the amount of species there are, the larger the tree island the more chance there is to have more

In Idlewood, the open area was the second to least populous and had the least number of different species. While Tyler State park’s open area has the second to most diverse and populous recorded number of birds. The open area in Idlewood included a grassy field that was cultivated by humans for recreational reasons, but the open area in Tyler State Park included a farmland and the shrubs alongside of it which is the cause for the difference in population and diversity among the two areas. All habitats have limited space because of their boundaries (which were established in the classroom and can be found in the Field Study) but some habitats, such as the young forest, are able to provide more space for more species than other habitats, such as the wetlands. In regards to species diversity, Idlewood’s mature forest has the highest species diversity percentage at 8.52 because of the species: population ratio. Tyler State Park’s young forest has the highest species diversity percentage at 12.88 because it had a higher number of different species than the other

Environmental conditions are sometimes appropriate for the evolution of numerous species from a common ancestor. Evolutionary, or adaptive, radiations happen when a large number of species descend from one lineage. This phenomenon usually occurs when a population of one species colonizes an area with many available ecological niches and when the rate of speciation is greater than the rate of extinction in a given area. Adaptive radiations have historically taken place after mass extinctions and on newly formed island archipelagos, because these incidences create conditions where new species can fill open ecological niches. Unlike the mainland, ecological niches are available on new island systems. These island species adapt to new environments

The Supra-littoral zone is one of the harshest terrains for organisms to exist in. The organisms that live in this region are facing problems like gas exchange, desiccation, temperature changes and feeding. It is only covered during storms and extremely high tides and is moistened by the spray of the breaking waves. Organisms are exposed to the drying heat of the sun in the summer and to extreme low temperatures in the winter. Because of these severe conditions, only a few resistant organisms live here. The dominate organisms that reside within this zone are Blue grey Periwinkles. Using Transect lines for over 30m, we evaluated the effects of several factors on this zone, including (1) predation, (2) herbivory, (3) plant—plant competition, (4) plant—animal competition, and (5) physical disturbance from high—energy waves. The interaction having the greatest effect on the structure of this zone was desiccation and high temperatures. However the Blue grey Periwinkle has been specially adapted to the harsh conditions of the dry upper littoral zone. They are able to trap water inside their shell to prevent moisture escaping, and cling to the rock face while the tide is out. As we can see from the abiotic data the temperature at the Supra littoral zone is also very high reaching 25 degrees compared to the other zones reaching only 20 degrees. Furthermore the special adaptations of the Blue Grey Periwinkle allow it to be the most dominant

The impacts on biotic factors are obvious. One-third of the island’s 1,600 unique species of plants

32). In Rowland Mead book Globetrotter Island Guide, “most plants in Iceland cannot germinate, grow, flower and produce seeds in the short amount of time it has” (77). “It is said that only 1% of Iceland land is cultivated; 23% is usable for grazing, and 76% is made up of wasteland, mountains, glaciers, deserts and lava fields” (Tomasson p. 33).Iceland physical and environmental feature range from a large number of different categories that show all it’s interesting landforms, amazing climate, and many different bodies of water.

After I carried out the entire investigation, I got the results showing biodiversity of two different ecosystems trough Simpson`s reciprocal index showed in graph 3. If we look generally on biodiversity index of both ecosystems, in both cases it is higher than 1, meaning that biodiversity index is not low. As the maximum value is equal to the number of species in the sample, we can say that in case of meadow, biodiversity is optimal, at medium

Gray’s Bush Scenic Reserve is a Department of Conservation managed 12 ha remnant of a podocarp-broadleaf forest. It is located on the north eastern side on the Gisborne flood plains approximately 10 km from the city centre of Gisborne. Gray’s Bush Scenic Reserve is unique in that it is the last surviving stand of the kahikatea/puriri forest type in the Gisborne region (DOC 'Gray's Bush. n.d). The prominent canopy trees are kahikatea and puriri with and understory comprised of nikau, kawakawa, pukatea, mahoe and tawa.

On the 9th of March, I went to Siren’s Rocks to investigate the community pattern, also called zonation, within the bounds of Island Bay’s Wellington Ecological Marine Reserve. The ecosystem of Taputeranga Marine Reserve takes the full impact of the Southern ocean swells. This Reserve is influenced by three different oceanic currents. This is an abiotic factor. The currents impact helps shape the rocky shoreline into the ecological community of different species of shore life into a pattern of different zones (zonation).