Recent Posts

Module 1 Blog post 2

TRU Open Learning Leave a comment

User:  | Open Learning Faculty Member: 

The source of this blog post is the book Forest Ecology by J.P. Kimmins (2004). While I’m mulling over the possibilities of the field project for this course, which I am going to do in the green belt in my backyard, this book will be a valuable resource.

The author is certainly an expert in his field, having been a professor in forest ecology related positions since the late 60’s. He has also helped develop a number of forestry based ecosystem management models.

There is a reference section that is over 50 pages long, serving as a testament to extensive citation and exhaustive research. There is no Methods or Results section in the book which would seem to make it a review of existing data, knowledge, and theories. However, the subtitle of the book is “A Foundation for Sustainable Forest Management and Environmental Ethics in Forestry” so it is certainly meant to provide guidance for sustainable management practices.

I’m not certain if this is considered to be peer reviewed material. There are six different editors listed and Kimmins gives a shout out to a number of reviewers, mostly professors at other institutions. Whether or not they served in an official capacity or were just helping out a friend is unclear but it seems that this bounty of ecological wisdom is academic material that is not peer-reviewed.

Alanna

 

Reference

Kimmins, J. P. (2004). Forest ecology: a foundation for sustainable forest management and environmental ethics in forestry (3rd ed). Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall.

Post 2; Source of Scientific Information

TRU Open Learning Leave a comment

User:  | Open Learning Faculty Member: 

In light of my first blog post, I have chosen a scientific source which discusses the characteristics of black-billed magpies nesting areas in urban regions. The source is an non-peer reviewed academic research paper. The article’s title is: ʺYear-round used large communal roosts of Black-billed Magpie Pica pica in an urban habitat. ˝

I classified this source as such because it is written by ornithology specialist Renzo Ientile from the Department of Biological science of the university of Catania in Italy. While the author has cited sufficient scientific sources in his work, it is not peer-reviewed. It is clearly a research paper as the methods, results and discussion sections are identified and well organized. To obtain the results described, the author and his associates have conducted 34 censuses in 5 different roosts located in urban areas over a period of one year. It enabled them to take into consideration factors such as climate/season changes and human interaction.

Here is the link to the full text;

http://www.ornitologiasiciliana.it/pdf/3.-Ientile.pdf

Ientile, Renzo. Year-round Used Large Communal Roosts of Black-billed Magpie Pica Pica in an Urban Habitat. Catania: CISO – Centro Italiano Studi Ornitologici, 2014.

Regards,

H, Zulfiqar

Blog Post 1; Observations

TRU Open Learning Leave a comment

User:  | Open Learning Faculty Member: 

The area of study selected for this field project is part of Hermitage park in Edmonton, AB. The first observations were conducted on October 7th at 16:00h under mostly sunny weather conditions with a feel-like temperature of 7° Celsius and winds at 26km/h. The surface area studied has a pond on one side facing a hiking trail. It’s exact coordinates according to Google maps are 53.5853937, -113.3729873.

Surrounding the pond are Broad leaf cattails (Typha latifolia), and further around the pond are coniferous trees, mostly Jack pine trees (Pinus Banksiana).

Around the pond, and on both sides of the hiking trail, birch trees (Betula papyrifera) are also a dominant species within the area’s vegetation. So are wild rose (Rosa Woodsii) bushes, which in this fall season, carry ripe red berries as displayed in the picture below. Near the pond, compared to the area surrounding the hiking trail, although similar species are observed, the main difference is that the trees are more widespread and exposed to sunlight as opposed to clustered (by the hiking trail).

During the field trip, two bird breeds were observed; the black-billed magpie, and the black-billed gull. They seemed to be accustomed to human presence as one could approach them easily to take a picture, and they would not budge. Also, during the trip, many hikers were observed, few of which were walking dogs. In this light, both on the trail area and the grass area, few dog feces were observed.

Other traces of human activity are rather obvious in this area, as trash can be found in the grass and along the hiking trail. Items can vary from used tissue paper, empty beer cans, plastic bags and more. In addition to that, on a grass area, one very clear trail left by a motorized vehicle can be seen. The weeds in the tire trails appear dry and damaged.

Following these first observations alone, few questions arise;

  1. What is it about the vegetation in this area that draws the presence of the black-billed magpie and how does human activity impact it?
  2. How does the sunlight and cluster pattern impact the growth of birch trees and jack pines?
  3. How does the presence of human litter and dog feces impact this ecosystem?

Regards,

H. Zulfiqar

Post 2: Source of Scientific Information

TRU Open Learning Leave a comment

User:  | Open Learning Faculty Member: 

The paper written by Michael Notaro discusses how different ecosystems change in different locations and in changing temperatures. This paper can be used to support any of the questions I provided in blog 1 which makes this a good paper to reference for the question I will choose to conduct an experiment for. I found this paper on the Academic Search Complete database from the TRU library databases page. Within the acknowledgments on page 854 it states two anonymous reviewers looked over the paper making it peer-reviewed. This paper is an academic source because the author provides in-text citations and a reference list, also the author, Michael Notaro, holds a position at the centre for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison when writing this paper. Lastly this is a review paper because even though there is a model and methods section the data used is collected from other experiments that are used as references to provide support for the paper. Therefore, there was no experiment conducted during the writing of this paper making it a review paper. When combining these all together this makes the paper an academic, peer-reviewed, review paper.

 

Michael N. 2008. Response of the mean global vegetation distribution to interannual climate variability. Climate Dynamics [accessed 2017 Nov. 4]; 30(7/8); 845-854. http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.tru.ca/ehost/detail?vid=5&sid=1cfcd4de-ce32-4493-8b4b-3ba8a14fa96%40sessionmgr120&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGI2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=31694974&db=a9h DIO: 10.1007/s00382-007-0329-7

 

Post 1: Observation

TRU Open Learning Leave a comment

User:  | Open Learning Faculty Member: 

This field experiment will be conducted at an island park called Zuckerberg Island Park, approximately 8 hectares large, found in the city of Castlegar, BC. Neighbourhood house are found from the north, south and west and the Kootenay river is found to the east. The river water also surround the island park. A large population of trees (majority of evergreen trees), shrubs, and small plants are found though-out the park. Centre of the park has a more dense population of trees. There are rocky beaches surrounded the edges of the park. Visited the park at 14:00 on November 4, 2017 and the the temperature was -1 C with cloudy weather and snow which had fallen a couple days prior to visit. Some questions that arose during the examination of the park where:

  1. What is the relationship of the proximity of the evergreen trees to the river water to the amount of evergreen trees found at those locations?
  2. What is the difference of survival and growth of green stems growing for evergreen trees found in the centre of the park (where population is dense) verse on evergreen trees found on the outskirts close to the river water (where population is sparse) when the temperature continues to drop during winter season?
  3. What is the relation of the amount of small plants growing for soil that is shelter from snow fall to the decrease of temperature, will the amount of small plants present decrease or stay constant?

Photos taken from cell phone when examining the park.

Blog Post 1: Observations

TRU Open Learning 1 Comment

User:  | Open Learning Faculty Member: 

 

Hello,

For the purpose of my field study, I will be focusing on a small man-made park in the city of Airdrie, AB. There is a canal full of runoff water that is to the east of the park. Surrounding the edges of the pond are a variety of shrubs, bushes, and trees. There are large boulders that line the edge of the pond. The density of the vegetation surrounding the pond varies from minimal vegetation to ten feet in depth. Up from the pond are varying degrees of slop to large fields of grass. A small cluster of trees and bushes are on a flat field surrounded by a walking path and picnic benches.

Surround this pond and park are walking paths and houses that back onto the pond, or onto the walking path. Some subjects I am looking into is whether there any species of fish in the pond? Does the vegetation on one side of the pond appear to grow differently from the other? Is there a difference in the vegetation near the pond compared to similar species that are not along the edge?

Visited October 29, 2017

Elevation 1080m

Weather – 4C partly cloudy with wind gusts of 40km/h from the west.

Time 14:15

Blog Post 4, Sampling Strategies

TRU Open Learning Leave a comment

User:  | Open Learning Faculty Member: 

The 3 sampling strategies learnt in the virtual forests tutorial are systematic, random, and haphazard sampling. Throughout the virtual forest tutorial I learned which were the most efficient, fastest, and most accurate. I sampled the Snyder-Middleswarth Natural Area using area sampling technique rather than the distance sampling technique.

 

Systematic Sampling –

A combination of both random and haphazard sampling. It is easier than random but has less of a bias than haphazard. Quadrats were chosen in a specific pattern across the location, usually a gradient. On the virtual forest tutorial, systematic was slower than haphazard, but faster than random sampling. However it did have a high percent error as follows:

Eastern Hemlock – 14.0%

Red Maple – 5.4%

Striped Maple – 138.3%

White Pine – 147.6%

 

Random Sampling –

Done by labelling quadrats and choosing the numbered quadrats at random, every quadrat has an equal chance at getting chosen. This takes the longest time to do to ensure everything is chosen at random. Random sampling did have the lowest percent error, making it the most accurate way of sampling.

Eastern Hemlock – 6.4%

Red Maple – 5.4%

Striped Maple – 66.8%

White Pine – 100.0%

 

Haphazard Sampling –

Done by choosing areas that have samples which are readily available, and taking samples from the different variations in your testing area. Haphazard samples are never random but always available, and therefore also have a high percent error.

Eastern Hemlock – 23.3%

Red Maple – 43.65%

Striped Maple – 4.6%

White Pine – 1.2%

 

Sampling speed:

Haphazard > Systematic > Random

 

Accuracy in 2 most common species:

Random > Systematic > Haphazard

 

Accuracy in 2 most rare species:

Haphazard > Random > Systematic

 

The accuracy did change with abundance of the species. Random sampling was the most accurate for common species, and haphazard was the most accurate for rare species. Overall, if time allows, random sampling would be the most accurate.

Blog Post 3, Ongoing Field Observations

TRU Open Learning Leave a comment

User:  | Open Learning Faculty Member: 

The attribute I plan to study is the species variation dependent on the elevation in the valleyview nature park. As shown in my field journal, at the top of the hill, defined in the field journal as high elevation, there is the most variety of species of plants. I have identified the few small trees as young ponderosa pine trees. There is also lots of sagebrush, but most of them are very small, around 1-2 feet in diameter. There is an abundance of tall, dry grass covering the entire ground.There is a wider blade grass, sage green in colour that grows in small patches. There is one last new plant I found which has tiny ‘fluffy’ ends to it.

In the medium elevation, along the side of the hill as you are walking down the trail I noticed a few changes. There were no ponderosa pines, or the wide bladed grass. There were however still lots of the tall, dry grass and the fluffy ended plant. The sagebrush plants became visibly larger in diameter, this time around 2-4 feet in diameter. There was a new bush type plant that was not in the higher elevation, with thick dark brown stems and burnt orange leaves on the ends.

Lastly, in the lowest elevation of the park, the main walking trail through the 2 higher elevation sections, there is only sagebrush, tall dry grass, and the orange leaf plant. This time the sagebrush were larger again, with some being at least 4 feet in diameter.

One of the first things I noticed was the clear difference in size in the sagebrush along the elevation gradient.

Hypothesis: The size, in diameter, of sagebrush is determined by elevation level.

Prediction: The diameter of sagebrush becomes larger as the elevation becomes lower because they are more sheltered from the elements.

Response variable: The diameter of the sagebrush (continuous variable).

Explanatory variable: The elevation level (categorical).

field notes along a elevation gradient

Ongoing Field Observations

TRU Open Learning Leave a comment

User:  | Open Learning Faculty Member: 

Sept. 27 2017. 20 C. 13:00.

The area I have chosen to study, is a rather large area, home to and frequented by many plants and animals. Unfortunately, Northern BC is not normally blessed with pleasant springs (or summers, falls, or winters for that matter) and the season has been hot, dry, and smoky due to forest fires; not conducive to a decent growth season for plants, which may reduce the number of animals feeding, foraging and preying in the forest and wetland spaces. Luckily, as summer faded into fall, the fires were subdued by the hard work of firefighters and a large amount of rain.

Another benefit of the rain is that it turns the trails to mud and makes footprints, or tracks, easier to spot and identify. Besides the obvious human and domestic canine, there are also black bear and most exciting to me, moose tracks. Moose (Alces alces) are a large ungulate species that are hunted as game, parts of which take up much of the space in my family’s freezers and decorate the doorways of the city’s sheds and shops. I have chosen to study these animals, specifically their traffic and forage activity in the Vanway trail system.

I have documented moose activity in the area with the help of a game camera and the discovery of various tracks. I have also observed evidence of foraging various plant species. Although moose have preferred forage species, they will start to eat more staple and bulk food options as the weather gets colder, herbage withers, shrubs lose their leaves and snow begins to settle. It is my hypothesis that, because the moose have access to such an extensive, open trail system, that the used proportion of available forage will be much higher on the edges of the trail and will decrease as distance from the trail increases. The used proportion of available forage will therefore be a response variable, and the distance from the trail will be an explanatory variable. Distance from the trail is a categorical, or qualitative variable. The forage data will initially be categorical, as it will be recorded as a specific species and either ‘browsed’ or ‘not-browsed’, but it will later be extrapolated to a continuous value of proportion or percentage.

Blog Post 5: Design Reflections

TRU Open Learning Leave a comment

User:  | Open Learning Faculty Member: 

My initial study design includes the collection of percent covers of moss species along an environmental gradient, i.e. the slope position on a bedrock outcrop.   I found that deciding on which sampling strategy to use for this exercise to be somewhat challenging.  I chose a strategic sampling strategy in which samples were collected at regular intervals along a gradient.             A transect was established along the environmental gradient, starting at the base of the western slope of the rock outcrop, over the crest, and down the eastern slope to the depression.  Samples consisted of 18 cm by 18 cm square quadrats because this is the size that my foldable ruler, which was readily available, could produce and it seemed like a reasonable size (i.e. not too big or too small).  Quadrats were located along this transect and were spaced every 40 cm.

An example of one of the quadrats located on the moss covered rock outcrop

A challenge that I had when it came to implementing this sampling method was that due to the variation in the micro-topography, there was no single transect line that would include the representative areas in each of the slope positions.  I therefore had to deviate from the transect line so that the quadrats located on the western slope were all along the same transect, those along the crest and eastern slope along another, and those in the depression along yet another.

 

At a glance, the results of this sampling did not show a strong relationship or pattern in the percent covers of the various species.  The most notable pattern was that RACCAN occurred only on the crest of the rock outcrop and PYLSPL occurred only in the depression, while DICSCO and PLESCH were present in all of the samples (with the exception of one, which lacked DICSCO).  Note that 10 samples were collected instead of just 5 in order to obtain adequate representation of all of the slope positions on this particular rock outcrop while maintaining consistency in sample spacing.

I think the sampling strategy should be modified to include a broader study area, i.e. additional rock outcrops.  This will broaden my scope and allow for the collection of more samples, and will also decrease the impact of any localized patterns that may not be representative of other outcrops in the area.  I will try out a couple of different strategies; one option being to collect one random sample from each slope position on several different rock outcrops, and another being to simply repeat the same strategic transect methodology (but perhaps using a spacing of 20 cm instead of 40 cm in order to increase the sample number) on multiple rock outcrops.  The sampling method used worked well and I will continue to use this method.