User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
The site I have selected for my project is a ravine in the Yorkson Creek Trail of McClughan Park in Langley, B.C., Canada. It is located behind an elementary school and there is a bridge that crosses over the creek. It is quite a popular trail for people to take their dogs on walks. I visited the ravine on Friday November 13, 2020 at about 14:10-14:45 hours. It was a cloudy day with a temperature of 8°C. There was heavy rain in the morning so the ground was quite muddy and slippery. There is a steep slope heading down towards the creek and bridge. It is a heavily forested area with lots of pine trees and also at this time of year, bare trees whose leaves are scattered throughout the forest floor. The creek water was muggy and running quite fast.
The area is home to many birds, animals, and fish, but I was not able to spot any during my visit. I decided to focus my observations on vegetation. The first plant that stood out to me was at the entrance of the trail, at the top of the ravine. They were some plants with white balls at the ends. I thought it must be some type of fruit in its early stages. Upon further research, I found they were snowberry plants. They were not covered by any trees and interestingly, I only found these plants at the top. This leads me to believe that snowberries need direct sunlight in order to grow. Ferns also caught my eye. They seemed to be scattered randomly throughout the entire area, but after taking a deeper look, I noticed they seemed more abundant around tree trunks and also further away from the creek. The last plant I observed had a thick, thorned stem with large green leaves. It seemed like they grew only near the water, as I did not spot them anywhere else.
The three questions that came to mind during my visit were:
- Do snowberries need direct sunlight or are they able to grow under shade as well?
- Do ferns grow primarily under shade? Do they grow in moist environments, but not too close to water?
- Do the large green plants require lots of water to grow?
I would love to study the snowberries, but I think I would like to conduct my research along the elevation gradient of the slope and because the snowberries were only located at the top, they may not be a great topic for my project. Instead, the ferns seem more feasible, so I will focus my observations on the ferns on my next visit.
Sounds like a good study site and good potential questions. You could consider looking at how other things like shade, soil moisture or % slope influence fern growth. Some or all of these could be measured along your gradient from the stream.