Ecological Species Observation Report

Introduction Succession is referred to as changes within an ecological community following a disturbance of a relatively large area (Connell and Slatyer 1977.) Succession is broken down into two main time periods: primary and secondary. Primary succession is classified as the formation of soil and colonization of annual plants over a depleted land. Secondary succession is classified as the colonization and development of perennial plants over an established ecosystem. The process at which succession occurs is so well studied that we can determine what stage of succession an ecosystem is at based on the type of plants present. A disturbance of an ecological system by fire, clear cutting, or urbanization depletes a system of all plant life.The …show more content…
Species richness at Burr Oak Preserve was greater than the species richness at North Farm. Species Evenness between the two sites were opposite. North Farm had a greater species evenness than Burr Oak Preserve. When measuring alpha diversity of each site, we used Shannon’s Index to give a broad view of each site. This showed us that the Shannon’s value for Burr Oak Preserve was a larger value at 2.18 than North Farm 1.82. When Comparing the two sites for Beta diversity, we noticed that the species overlap for the two areas was very high. We calculated this using Sorenson’s Index which showed that there was a 46% species overlap between the two sites. We also measured the mean to point ratio. Burr Oak mean distance to tree ratio was 3.5 meters compared to North Farms 3.1 …show more content…
Although Burr Oak Preserve had a greater species richness than North Farm, we can still see some trees in common. The majority of these trees consisted of Red and White Oaks, Hickories, Sweet Gums, Elms, Ash, and Basswood. IN Burr Oak Preserve, there was a larger mean distance to tree ratio. This is suggesting that there is more light resource available for smaller growing hardwood trees. This is due to the early successional trees reaching their climax age and dying out. We can also see that Burr Oak Preserve is halfway taken over by hardwood or later successional species by 53%. This is also supported by the comparison of basal area of each species. We can see that at Burr Oak Preserve that there was a larger basal area for oaks and hickories when compared to later successional trees. At North farm, There was a smaller mean distance to tree ratio but it only varies by .4 meters. North Farm also had a significantly large number of hardwood trees growing as well. Controversially, we can see that the ball area of late successional trees is less than that of the early successional