User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
It is common knowledge that plants need light, however, I am interested to know how strong the correlation is to the amount of available light and the proliferation of vegetation on the forest floor when the canopy has undergone a disturbance. Additionally, the presence of pedestrian traffic through the study area ensures that there is continuous disturbance of the vegetation in the area of the footpath. People routinely stray off-path, dogs run off-leash, and herbivores such as deer eat young vegetation as it develops. These conditions offer benefits to invasive species as they can be found along any popular forest footpath in the area. These factors probably have a major role in determining the overall composition of the ecological communities, but each community is primarily dependent on available light for photosynthesis. Therefore, I believe that studying the relationship between light levels and amount of vegetation would provide an interesting insight into the revegetation in continuously disturbed areas.
Project Keywords:
Light-levels, vegetation ground cover, Human disturbance
