Terrestrial Ecology Lab

This investigation was designed to compare the height of Pteridium aquilinum in a light area and a dark area of Rushy Plains, Epping Forest and to establish if light intensity does have an effect on the growth of Pteridium aquilinum, commonly known as Bracken. From my research it was clear that the height of Bracken is affected by abiotic factors, other than light intensity, such as: soil moisture, soil temperature, air temperature and soil pH so I had to control these factors. I carried out preliminary experiments to find a suitable site where all these factors where constant. For my actual investigation I measure

Introduction: Photosynthesis can be defined as a solar powered process that removes atmospheric carbon dioxide and transforms it into oxygen and carbohydrates (Harris-Haller 2014). Photosynthesis can be considered to be the most important biochemical process on Earth because it helps plants to grow its roots, leaves, and fruits, and plants serve as autotrophs which are crucial to the food chain on earth. Several factors determine the process of photosynthesis. Light is one these factors and is the main subject of this experiment. The intensity of light is a property of light that is important for photosynthesis to occur. Brighter light causes more light to touch the surface of the plant which increases the rate of photosynthesis (Speer 1997). This is why there is a tendency of higher rates of photosynthesis in climates with a lot of sunlight than areas that primarily do not get as much sunlight. Light wavelength is also a property of

In this lab, we studied the health and response of a protist community in an environmental change. The objective of this lab was to study and learn about how variables, such as a more acidic environment, impact the community in a habitat. Furthermore, it was also to learn about how diversity is quantified. To test this, we added protist communities to habitats of different pH levels, from 7 to 4, and let them live there for a week. We then studied the results and investigated which protists lived better in which environments. We discovered that at a pH of 7, the neutral pH of spring water, protists were able to live. As the pH was decreased, however, protists began to die off and could not survive in such acidic conditions. We also noticed that the lower the pH, the lower the diversity because fewer types of protists could survive. We can use this information to see how acidic conditions in nature such as those caused by acid rain can affect communities. We now know that an acidic environment can be extremely harmful to a community and so we should be more cautious of acid rain. If acidic conditions are bad for protists, it is quite possible that they are unfavorable for humans as well.

The purpose of this lab is to better understand the process of natural selection and its effects on a population by conducting a stimulation. The stimulation consist of predators (students with either a spoon, fork or a knife) and prey (different types of beans). Furthermore, students will be able to determine how phenotype (bean color and utensil used by the predators) influences natural selection. Students will also demonstrate their quantitative skills by determining the predator survival and reproduction, bean survival and reproduction, and by calculating the total percent of the population. Additionally, students will be able to identify the occurrence of evolution by natural selection after the end of generation three. Moreover, students

Temperature influences the distribution of plants and this is another abiotic factor. In the Lions club tower I could feel the difference in temperature. Bottom at being cold and moist whereas the top is warm and dry. This is shown clearly on the average table. Temperatures such as snow or frost determines the distribution of plants as most plants cannot prevent freezing because of their tissues and this abiotic factor affects the plantae group. Other effects that could cause an establishment to particular plants due to temperature is the gemination of biennial plants, and this is during spring or summer known as vernalization. This is the cooling of seed in order to quickly adapt to the environment and the abiotic factors. As of the forest

Forest ecosystems cover around 31% of our land across the world; they produce vital supplies from oxygen to logs for the production of paper and furniture such as tables.

Fog is believed to have a great impact on a forest ecosystem. To measure how much of an affect fog can have on the redwood costal forest, the experimenters measured the amount of water and nitrogen changes from horizontal moving fog, rain, and overall redwood tree function. They predicted that during the fog season, the differences in dispositions from the amount of fog on the edge of the redwood forest and the interior would translate to differences in ecosystem function. These functions include plant performance, soil moisture, and nutrient availability across the forest. They believe that during the winter rain season there is no disparities in ecosystems from the edge to the interior of the redwood forest. In the end they discovered that

We also had a measuring tape and measured up to 25 meters and cut into several parts at each 5 meters leaving in middle 10 meter between both areas of interest or between two different groups working. We were divided into two different groups, one working on low latitude and the other group working on high latitude and repeated the same thing on both side of the mountain. After cutting transect, we recorded each plant species we saw at the field and made some approximation of grasses in percent based on area

There are different sorts of environments scattered over the earth, but what and where are they? In World Biodiversity Expedition, the reader is to collect data about these organisms and the environment they are settled at. A biome is often mistaken as an ecosystem, however, it is defined by non-living factors such as climate, soils, and vegetation. This unit helped me understand more clearly that there are so many organisms that I did not know anything about. I learned a lot from this specific unit when it comes to discoverying animals and organisms that I did not know exist.

Sixty five measurements were made for the Southwestern Grady Oak Savanna area and part of the Green Prairie, by sampling 7 of the transects based on the UW Arboretum grid. The first two transects were sampled every 10 meters but the 5 remainings were sampled every 50 meters, due to time concerns (Figure 10).

Figure 1 shows the comparison of stems per acre for each stand. There is a steady decrease in stems. For older forests, competition has already played out. The dominant tree species has already matured, and more mature trees result in more shade. More shade thus leads to less

Objective: To create an ecosystem contained in a bottle with both terrestrial and aquatic environments sealed to the outside world.

A). The total basal area and total density results were different for the two Prospect Park forests. The total basal area was 32.74 and the total density was 740 for the Upland site. The total basal area was 190.65 and the total density was 460 for the Floodplain site. These results reveal that the trees in the floodplain site occupies a larger proportion per hectare of tree stems while having fewer total individual tree per hectare compared to the Upland site. Additionally, the Upland site has more total individual trees per hectare and less area occupied by tree stems.

In stream based ecosystems, there is a rather delicate balance between the life found and the relative levels of particular substances in said stream. We use Bioindicators to give us an idea of the health of a particular ecosystem, which are in turn heavily influenced by the contents of the environment. Keeping this in mind our group set out to investigate two streams that are in two completely different areas. This was organized in attempt to get samples from two streams that would have very distinct contents, serving as a control for our overall hypothesis.

Our lab investigated the morphological characteristics of leaves found in the sun and shade on various species of maple and oak trees around campus. Our null hypothesis was Acer and Quercus acclimate similarly with regards to SLW (specific leaf weight), size, and sinuosity. Our hypothesis was Quercus acclimation is greater than Acer SLW, size, and sinuosity. We tested these hypotheses by picking small sections of a branches from both maple and oak trees. A group was assigned either a maple or an oak tree, and needed a total of three different trees per group. Once three different trees were chosen, groups needed three shade leaves and three sun leaves of off each different tree. In total, each group should then end up with 18 leaves for testing. After collecting the leaves, we ran them through the LiCor 3100 leaf area meter to identify the area of each leaf. Major results found by the classes’ mutual data was each one of our p-values were greater than .05. This means that we failed to reject the null hypothesis. Thus, the lab results do not support our hypothesis that Quercus acclimation is greater than Acer SLW, size, and sinuosity.