User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
Hello Professor Hebert and classmates of Biology 3021 and welcome to my blog posts for my selected ecology field research project.
I’ve selected a private urban community garden in the City of Vancouver, known at 16 Oaks Community Garden. This area is located on private land and is used by garden members who join at-will, including administrative costs and required labour requirements for remaining in good standing for membership.
Here is a photo looking northeast across the garden towards the intersection of Oak St. and W. 16th Ave.
My initial research topic(s) is as follows and will be narrowed as data is gathered in addition to input from classmates and instructors.
- Novel biodiversity study of insects in this Urban Community garden ecosystem
- Novel biodiversity study of invasive insects in this Urban Community garden ecosystem
- Novel biodiversity study of native insects in an Urban Community garden ecosystem in a location with potential contaminants of concern (PCOCs)
The location of this garden is at the intersection of W. 16th Avenue and Oak Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. The coordinates are as follows:
49° 15′ 24″ N 123° 7′ 40″ W
The garden’s relative elevation is 60m. This data was collected using the Compass application native to the iOS operating system 13.4.1 on 2020-05-31 at 18:02:00.
The time of data collection was 18:01:01, with the date being 2020-05-31. Weather at time of initial survey was partly cloudy with full sun. There was a breeze of unknown speed in the direction of northeast.
The current season is this hemisphere is Spring and the temperature was 19.4°C, collected using a standard household meat thermometer placed in open air and allowed to condition to surrounding environment for approximately10 minutes.
Using a standard 30m length survey tape, the approximate dimensions of the square garden is 34.8m along Oak Street, and 34.67m along W. 16th Avenue. The total area of the garden is approximately (34.8m x 34.67m) = 1207m^2.
The topography is ungraded, sloping and undulating in areas where draining is incomplete. Overall the community garden slopes toward the northeast. The land is covered in a mix of grass, clover and wild flowering plants, with the inside perimeter lined with a mix of low brush, flowers and occasional trees. Throughout the internal garden there are raised and ground-level garden beds. These beds consists of fruits, flowers, and vegetables. Absent of human input, the garden most closely resembles a meadow ecosystem.
Here is a photo of some suspected meadow buttercup, or Ranunculus acris L. growing between garden beds (Klinkenberg, 2020).
Thanks for your time and attention and I hope you’ll stay tuned to this exciting research project focused on biodiversity in urban ecosystems.
References:
Klinkenberg, B. (2020). E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia. Lab for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia.
