Ecological Succession At Umass Dartmouth

It is the observed process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time. Within any community some species may become less abundant over some time interval, or they may even vanish from the ecosystem altogether. Similarly, over some time interval, other species within the community may become more abundant, or new species may even invade into the community from adjacent ecosystems. This observed change over time in what is living in a particular ecosystem is "ecological succession".

On September 17th, 2015 our group went on the Orange Trail of the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens, Georgia to collect data for our lab. The biome of this area that we explored fit a temperate deciduous forest type. We walked along the trail and picked random spots to start measuring our transects. We measured DBH size and canopy coverage at 10, 20, 30, and 40 meters respectively along each transect for a total of six transects. We used a densitometer to measure the percent of canopy coverage of the tree closest to the center of the sampling points along each of the transects. We used a measuring tape to measure out 10, 20, 30, and 40 meters respectively along each of the six

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,

Primary Succession is starting from nothing and then slowly over years rebuilds into a habitable place such as starting from bare rock to pioneer species adapt and colonize what was nothing into something. Secondary succession is a process of recovering from a natural disaster or from human interaction with the earth such as faming.

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

After conducting a t-test and regression in R, we can conclude that vegetation cover differs on and off a prairie dog colony meaning that prairie dogs have a significant effect of grassland vegetation by increasing vegetation richness and diversity. As we already said, there was a greater variety of plants in the grassland region with prairie dogs than in the region without prairie dogs. The fact that there is more vegetation on a prairie dog colony region than off a prairie dog colony suggests that sites inhabited by prairie dog populations will have a richer distribution of plants and a healthier prairie ecosystem.

Forests are an irreplaceable part of Earths ecosystem. Every forest is unique due to flora and fauna which houses it. They are homes for many species from simple bacteria to big carnivore animals. Forests absorb carbon dioxide and provide oxygen and is a great place for recreation and biological studies. Temperate forest of northeast United States is an example of rich diversity and harmony of plants and animals. Unfortunately, constant growing of human population and demand for more land for agriculture and housing leads to deforestation and destroying of the natural habitats. Deforestation and Agriculture, are an two of many factors which have negative impact on temperate forest in northeast United States.

In order to answer this question we must first understand what succession is. There are two types of succession, primary, and secondary. Primary is when there is no life on a landform such as an empty island, and there was no community on that island before the succession. Secondary succession is where the community that was on the island is now being removed, and that there is a recovering of the population after the succession has occurred. One of the important things to remember about secondary succession is that it is typically faster because the soil is already present and plants may still be buried under the soil, and thus can grow faster then if they weren't there.

Succession can be defined as the concept of flora and fauna renewing itself in an ecosystem, which can be quite cyclical in nature. When discussing succession, it is broken down into two categories, primary succession, and secondary succession. Primary succession is where succession transpires in an uninhabited location. For example, Glacier Bay, Alaska is an important illustration of primary succession, because as the glacier recedes, land is being exposed creating a new habitat of barren rock. Lichens were one of the first pioneer species to appear on Glacier Bay, from there succession of other flora and fauna followed, developing a new ecosystem. While primary succession deals with the idea of inhabiting a ecosystem where life has never

This study investigated the biodiversity at Lido Beach in Long Island. The objective was to investigate how biodiversity changed for areas away from human habitat. Salt marshes and wetland are under severe threat due to irresponsible actions on the part of humans. There needs to be an awareness and understanding in the general public as to the importance of these natural habitats and their significance to the general ecosystem. There is enough evidence to suggest the degradation has already happened, and how critical it is to protect salt marshes and wetlands. The results were encouraging as they pointed in the general direction that diversity was not impacted close to the pathway that was subjected to human traffic. However, the data collected did not point to any specific conclusions. Nonetheless, it provided valuable information on the subject of the study. The results for the entire class data indicated that for richness, there was a positive correlation between the family richness of the samples and the distance from the path. Specific results for one group for each sample point indicated that for richness, there was more richness observed near the path than away from it. For evenness, the results indicated that as the distance from the path increased, the evenness did not have a clear pattern, even though there was a general increase in evenness away from the path, especially, as shown by the 30m and 50m sampling points. For proportional

The common traits that all four land areas expressed on the survivorship curve were between type one, two and three. Most of the species found in the vegetable block, grazed and ungrazed pastures such as Vulpia are R selected. R selected are short lived, highly mobile, often density-independent and the survivorship is typically lower than K selected species (Parry, 1981). R selected are typically more frequent than K selected but are also unstable. The woodlot and some species in the ungrazed pasture are K selected species, such as Blackberry. These species are typically long lived, the mobility is often more sedentary, often density-dependent and the survivorship is typically medium to high (Parry, 1981). Shorter lived plants are

maximus and S. surattensis at varying elevations. Percent cover is often used to determine the coverage of a particular species; in this case it is used to determine the cover of Guinea grass and Kolomano on the different plots. Based on observations from several ridge hikes, a hypothesis had been drawn up, and stated that: As elevation increases, so does percent cover of M. maximus and S. surrattensis. M. maximus is a good species to test because of it’s high abundance, particularly on the ridge. Kolomano is also a readily available on the ridge and is easily visible due to its flowers. By collecting measurements of percent cover at each of the 11 plots, the hypothesis could be supported or refuted.

The purpose of our experiment was to test the intermediate disturbance hypothesis by observing plant diversity patterns along a trail. According to the theory, we should observe minimal plant diversity right next to the trail and not much far from the trail. However, there should be a greater amount of diversity some intermediate distance from the trail. We went to the James K. McPherson preserve to observe the types of plants and number of them along the trail. Our sampling method was to observe a patch of vegetation measuring 10cm by 50cm, looking for different plant species and number of individuals. We excluded all trees and shrubs and only measured tree and shrub seedlings and other understory species. Our results showed that further away from the trail, there were more diverse plants and more of them. Our experiment supports the idea that intermediate levels of disturbance promote diversity.

Importance values were calculated by combining the relative density, relative dominance, and relative frequency of each tree species. The trees with the highest importance values will be those that exist in the greatest number or are of the greatest size. The importance value identifies the dominant species in a community that may have the greatest effect on the community, thus hinting at the physical structure of a plant community. Once the importance values are found, a community can be defined in terms of its most significant species. Within Dowell’s Draft are eastern white pine-pignut hickory-Virginia pine communities while Chimney Hollow is comprised of eastern hemlock-white oak-eastern white pine communities. Eastern white

Table 1 depicts the relative dominance calculated by using our class data. To do this, the basal area was calculated per individual tree followed by the basal area for each species. Relative dominance was calculated by dividing the basal area per species by the total basal area. From my calculations, the basal area was 99.97%, relatively close to the expected 100%. In table 2, the Shannon Diversity Index was calculated, that is, the proportion of a species’ abundance times the natural log of that proportion, summed for all species. The calculated value, 4.7977, is reflective of a relatively diverse location.