Tree And Plant Life Survey Essay, Research Paper
Tree and Plant Life Survey
In this experiment, conducted by Mr. Luckinbill’s AP and Advanced Environmental Science class, our goal was to take a trip into the woods behind the Blue Mountain High School and identify and find the relative dominance and density of the tree population and to identify the plant life as well. I believe that we will have found mostly oak and pine trees in the forest, at first glance, they seem to be the dominant trees.
For this experiment, we took both a book of trees and a book on plants, and a measuring stick. When we got to the woods, we used something known as the quadrant method, in which we were given a spot, and we picked a tree in the 4 areas around it. For that tree we picked, we had to identify it and find its circumference with the measuring stick. We did that for a total of 8 quadrants. Then, the following day, we went to the field in front of the woods, and did a survey on a section given to us by the teacher. We identified a plant, and found how many of it there were in the area. At the end of these experiments, we calculated the total number of trees, their total density, and found relative dominance and relative density. Then we calculated the total number of plant life as well.
During this experiment, we have found the forest we investigated to be in a secondary succession seral stage. A sere is a stage in the successional process that is characterized by certain dominant forms of plants and animals. In the primary succession stage, there is not that much animal life found, as it is a barren area with not much soil. But animals such as squirrels, groundhogs, etc., probably could be found here. Not many water living animals, however, as there is not much water found anymor
In this report, we covered what all occurred with the experiment, its results, and gave you a brief description of forest successional stages. In the back part of this report, you will find the results of our forest analysis in graph form.