The theoretical basis of my research project is plant-insect interaction theory (Stamp, N. E. 1996). Because of the complexity of plant-insect interactions, this theoretical underpinning is still being revised. My research also touches on topics of community structure, trophic levels, and the empirical evidence that plant species diversity correlates with insect species diversity.
Keywords: species richness, plant diversity, invertebrate diversity
Stamp, N. E. 1996. Developing a theory of plant-insect herbivore interactions: Are we there yet? Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, 77(1), 51-61. doi:10.2307/20168007
From observing plant species along the forested Alfred Howe Greenway trail, Port Moody, BC, there was an evident yet gradual shift in general species type and abundance from the south end of the trail to the north end of the trail. More specifically, the most noticeable change occurred in the abundance and characteristics of pine trees, with an evident decline in number and size from the south end of the trail (elevation: 118 m), to the middle of the trail (elevation: 85 m), and all the way down to the north end of the trail (elevation: 50 m).
My field notes consist of the observed distribution, abundance, and character of pine trees at three points along (primarily) an elevation gradient. An urbanisation gradient could also be noted, with the north end of the trail being near Barnet Highway, in addition to observed deforestation and construction near the north end of the trail.
Please Note: My field observations also included plant pathologies noted along the same three points of the trail. Although more plant pathology was notably observed at the end of the trail, pine tree abundance will most likely form the basis of my study, although the notes taken on observed plant pathologies can illustrate the diversity and variation of plants found along the trail.
A copy of the second field journal entry is shown below:
Potential underlying processes that may have caused this particular pine tree distribution along the trail could include:
Temperature difference (as a result of varying elevation).
Anthropogenic impact (potential direct, selective, interference that could have disrupted natural species distribution).
Invasive species/competition (leading to a fewer quantity and smaller size of pine trees at the north point of the trail).
Soil composition (with academic papers suggesting that pine trees prefer more acidic soils (Kruckeberg, 1969)).
Hypothesis: Relatively colder temperature increases pine tree abundance.
Prediction: The point of the trail with the coldest average temperature will support the greatest abundance of pine trees.
Response Variable: Pine tree abundance (categorical).
Explanatory Variable: Temperature (continuous).
Reference: Kruckeberg, A., R. 1969. Soil diversity and the distribution of plants, with examples from western North America. Madrono 20. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41423658
The study area I have chosen for my field research project is Colony Farm Regional Park, located in the Cities of Port Coquitlam and Coquitlam, BC. The Coquitlam River that flows through the park is the physical boundary between the two cities. Colony Farm, approximately 236 hectares in size, is bound by the Lougheed Highway to the west, the Mary Hill Bypass to the south, and Shaughnessy Street to the east. Once an operating farm owned by the Province, the park is now managed as a regional park by Metro Vancouver. Land use is associated with passive recreation, agriculture, and wildlife management. A link to the park map is provided below.
The park is navigable via the existing dike network and is generally flat. Cessation of farming activities has allowed for the establishment of expansive old-field habitat. Other habitat types include mixed deciduous/coniferous forest (predominantly along park edges), marsh, wetland, riverine, riparian, and hedgerow. Drainage ditches and small waterways are also prevalent along the existing trails.
I visited Colony Farm on July 2, 2018, at 1900 hours. Weather conditions at the time of the visit were clear, calm, and approximately 17 degrees Celsius. Based on my initial observations I have generated the following three questions:
How does species richness vary amongst the different habitat types within the park? More specifically, which habitat type supports the greatest number of bird species and why?
What factors contribute to the spatial arrangement of red elderberry bushes that occur within the old field habitat portions of the park?
Do waterfowl selectively use waterways within the park that contain the greatest density of emergent vegetation? Does this vary between life stages? (fledgling, juvenile, adult)
I have frequently been observing my chosen field of study (my backyard in Parksville, BC) since the last time I wrote a blog post which was June 15th. Today, July 4, 2018 at 1:45 PM, I have decided to once again return to the chosen site and this time journal my findings.
The temperature today is 22 degrees Celsius with a warm breeze and overcast sky. I first sat inside looking out the back window for 30 minutes prior to coming outside to see what forms of wildlife I would observe. I saw multiple birds fly by, and a couple of red squires scurry from tree to tree. I then went and sat outside on the patio closer to the forest and played music to cause a small and harmless disturbance; making my presence known.
I still saw the birds pass by but they no longer stopped on the grass, instead they would stop closer into the trees and forest. I no longer saw any more squirrels for the remained of the time.
I then decided to step into the forest and go through a path that looped around the property. The deeper into the forest I got the more activity or indication of animal activity I noticed. There were multiple robins and other unidentified birds resting in the trees. I came across a tree deep in the forest that indicates there is probably a pileated woodpecker in the area as well. A couple of meters further I found what appeared to be an eagle feather, and lastly I noticed an old birds nest that was abandoned in a taller cedar shrub. I didn’t see any rabbits on my walk around the property, however, I did come across some pellet feces, suggesting there was– at some point– rabbit in the area as well.
So, from the observations I’m making it seems to me that the further I venture into the forest the more wildlife there is. With all this being said I am leaning towards pursuing my initial question of: How does human activity close to the forest affect the activity of animals in the surrounding area? I have also made note that the wildlife activity is more frequent when the weather is warmer and either early in the day and later at night when human activity is minimal.
My hypothesis: Closer to human activity, the less animal activity will occur.
Prediction: The deeper I explore into the forest and the further away from the house I get, the more wildlife I will observe.
One potential response variable could be presence/absence of birds, squirrels, deer and rabbits present with each day. This would be considered a categorical variable.
A couple potential explanatory variable could be the human activity around the area, and/or the temperature of the day. This would be considered a continuous variable.
The virtual forest tutorial allowed one to test three different sampling strategies: systematic sampling, random sampling and haphazard sampling. It was determined that the fastest estimated sampling time was the systematic sampling technique at 12 hours and 35 minutes. Following this was the random and haphazard techniques, with 12 hours and 43 minutes and 13 hours and 9 minutes, respectively.
The most common tree species were Eastern Hemlock and Red Maple. Systematic sampling was the most accurate of the three techniques when obtaining samples of Eastern Hemlock and Red Maple, with 17.4% and 14.4% error respectively. Random sampling of Eastern Hemlock resulted in a 20.6% error and haphazard resulted in 44.7% error. The sampling of Red Maple by the haphazard technique had 14.4% error, tying for the most accurate with systematic sampling. The least accurate technique was random sampling with 26.4% error.
The least common tree species were Striped Maple and White Pine. Of the three sampling techniques, random sampling was the most accurate. The percent error was 18.9% for Striped Maple and 50% for White Pine. Though random sampling was the most accurate overall, haphazard was more accurate when sampling striped maple with 14.3% error. Systematic was the least accurate with 128.6% error. White pine had the lowest density out of the tree species and the percent error was the greatest. The least accurate technique was haphazard with 185.7% error. Systematic sampling had 138.1% error.
Systematic sampling was the most accurate technique with the most common species. Alternatively, the most accurate technique with the least common species was random sampling. As the abundance of species decreased, the percent error increased; the exception to this was Red Maple.
The two areas that I have selected to observe are situated on the Alfred Howe Greenway, a trail southwest of the Port Moody Arm of the Burrard Inlet, in Port Moody, BC. This forested trail is 1.1 km long and is part of a hill close to the Burnaby Mountain. This trail connects the Westhill residential area to the Barnet Highway. The area chosen for observation roughly spans 11.43 acres. This area was selected due to the steep elevation gradient between the two end points of the trail, in addition to the noticeably different vegetation in the south part of the trail in relation to the north part of the trail.
My first set of observations for the trail were taken at the south point of the trail (location: 49.285 ºN, -122.8789ºW, elevation: 125 m) and the north point of the trail (location: 49.290ºN, -122.8788 ºW, elevation: 30 m) on Friday, June 29th, 2018 from 16:19 to 17:08. It was a relatively cold summer day (16 ºC). During the observation period it was cloudy with intermittent light drizzle.
The south point of the trail was densely forested with tall evergreens and smaller bushes, with some birds observed at a distance. Some unusual plant and fungi species were noted, as well as some commonly reoccurring species. A sign close to the trail warning of a high pressure underground crude oil pipeline was also noted.
Photo: South Point of Alfred Howe Greenway Trail (left). “Camouflaged” moth found resting on pathway (top right). Unusual light grey mushroom specie with an appearance of an “inverted” cap (bottom right).
The north point of the trail had vegetation more spread out with less evergreens and much more seasonal trees, in addition to a much greater amount of flowers. It was noted that many of the plant species observed had pale brown and/or pale white “discolouration”. This trail segment was mostly covered in fine gravel and included a steep sand/fine gravel slope, which had a crevasse that could potentially contain a cave opening. Bird sounds were noted, however no birds were observed.
Photo: North Point of Alfred Howe Greenway Trail (left). Berry bush with some leaves having white, chalky, spots (middle top). Foxgloves (digitalis sp.) showing signs of budding, bloom, and wilting (top right). Opening in the middle of a steep sand/fine gravel slope (bottom right).
Three interesting questions that could form the subject of a research project could be:
What is the impact of elevation on species diversity?
What impact does the nearby oil and gas pipeline and activities have on the natural ecology of the surrounding area?
Why do many of the plants on the north point of the trail have a pathologic appearance?
A copy of the first field journal entry is shown below:
For this blog post I decided to choose The Journal of Applied Ecology. This site is an excellent source of ecological information and is very reliable. I decided to pick this site because it has a variety of journals related to animals and their behavior which I believe will help me with regards to my final project. I am planning on studying “How does having human activity incorporated into the forest affect certain activity of animals in the surrounding area?” so I believe this will be a very helpful and reliable source of information.
The Journal of Applied Ecology is an academic, peer-reviewed, review and research material.
I believe this to be the case since the site was written by experts, contained a bibliography and in-text citations, the journals had also been review by at least one referee before publication and there was a methods and results portions.
Reference:
Chalfoun, A. and Martin, T. 2007. Assessments of habitat preferences and quality depend on spatial scale and metrics of fitness. Journal of Applied Ecology 44(5): 983-992.
The study site I have chosen is a forest that shapes its way down into a groomed lawn which is my backyard. The area is roughly half an acre of lawn and 2 acres of forest. The forest is mostly comprised of very tall pine trees, spruce and cedar trees and very few arbutus trees (mostly cedar trees however). There is also a lot of fern and cedar shrubs masking the grounds between the trees. The study area I have chosen is on the out skirts of town. It is an estate residence so the traffic passing through is minimal and all housing is about 2.5 acres apart. There is more frequent wildlife passing than human. The area is all relatively flat with a couple bumps and a slight incline from the house to the lawn up to the forest. I visited this site at 11:00 am, Friday morning on June the 15th 2018. The temperature was 16 degrees Celsius with blue skies and very minimal partial clouding. It was a beautiful day.
The first thing I couldn’t help but to notice was the obvious passing of wildlife. I did choose this area not only because it is my backyard, but also because over the years I have seen multiple forms of wildlife step outside of the forest, out of their world, and into our world. I have seen multiple species of bird, squires, quails, mice, dear and even black bears since I have lived here. So, the obvious question I have would be: How does having human activity incorporated into the forest affect certain activity of animals in the surrounding area? Another question that interest my curiosity would be to why are the number of arbutus trees in the forest so limited and why are they found so deep into the forest? My last and final question would be: is the dominant type of bird species around my backyard (robins) due to the resources the forest provides?
The subject of my studies is sagebrush, also known as Artemisia tridentata. I visited the Valleyview Nature Park on June 28th between 1:00 and 1:40. On this day I only visited the east side of the park. The weather was partly sunny and mostly cloudy. The gradients I have chosen to observe the distribution of sagebrush are at the top of a hill, the slope of a hill and a valley.
The first two photos are of the side of a hill. It was noted that there are some sagebrush growing out of the side of the rock. There seems to be no clear pattern of sagebrush distribution on the hillside. The next two photos were at the top of a hill. In the third photo (facing North), there is a large number of sagebrush per unit area. The fourth photo was taken in the same position as the third, but this time facing South-West. It was noted that the amount of sagebrush in the area drastically reduces compared to the third photo. Finally, the fifth photo was taken facing North-East approximately 30 metres east of the third and fourth photos. There is a greater amount of sagebrush at the bottom of the valley versus on the hillside.
A few general observations I noted are:
-the soil in the valleys is slightly darker than the soil on the hill tops suggesting a higher water content.
-there are more trees and less sagebrush on the south side versus the north side of the park. This is not because of the amount of exposure to the sun; maybe there is a bit more water because the north side is beside the hillside whereas the south side is flat? Perhaps water travels down the hillside and therefore the north side of the park gets slightly more water?
-there are bundles of grass everywhere in the park (Bluebunch wheatgrass)
-there are areas that have a moderate/high amount of individuals and there are areas that have no individuals. It was very rare to see one individual on its own without other individuals close by. Perhaps competitive exclusion (one species dominates and removes the other species)?
I hypothesize that Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentate) will be have similar abundancies on hill tops versus valleys and Bluebunch wheatgrass (Psuedoroegneria spicate) will have similar abundancies on hill tops versus valleys in Valleyview Nature Park. The response variable is the number of sagebrush and bluebunch in a 4 meter by 4 meter quadrant. The predictor variables are elevation and soil moisture content. The response variable is continuous and the predictor variable is categorical, suggesting that I will have an ANOVA design for my experiment.
The information source evaluated is available through Thompson Rivers University Article Database:
Lehosmaa, K., Jyvasjarvi, J., Ilmonen, J., Rossi, P., M., Paasivirta, L., Muotka, T. 2018. Groundwater contamination and land drainage induce divergent responses in boreal spring ecosystems. Science of the Total Environment 639. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.05.126
This information source is academic peer-reviewed research material.
The information source is academic material, including authors that are part of departments specialising in the areas of knowledge the paper is focused upon. The research paper aims to observe the effects of groundwater contamination on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, including authors part of the Department of Ecology and Genetics at University of Oulu, Finnish Environment Institute, and Water Resources and Environmental Engineering Research Group at University of Oulu.
The paper includes in-text citations and a bibliography, allowing for information stated in the paper from other sources to be verified.
This source is peer-reviewed academic material, including an acknowledgement of two anonymous referees, in addition to providing the date the article was submitted, revised, and accepted on the article’s first page.
This source contains results from a field study conducted by the authors, containing “Methods” and “Results” sections that contain details of their research. Hence, the information source is academic peer-reviewed research material.
Alfred Howe Greenway and surrounding areas. (Google Maps, 2018)
