In this piece of writhing I am going to describe I am going to describe transects in a deciduous wood. Looking at my pie chart’s of a deciduous wood on page ____. I found dead bracken in two of the four quadrats ranging from 100% -130%. There was dry bracken in two of the four quadrats ranging up to 90%-100%. I also found small and big twigs in 80% in 0 meters, 30% in 8 metres and 30% - 40% In quadract four 12 meters. I also found acorn in all four quadrats roaming from 20% - 40%. I also found 20% of dry leaves in one-quadract 0 meters, 20% of leaf litter and 90% of dry soil in quadract.
In the deciduous woodland across a path I found dead bracken all three for the four 4metres, 8metres, 12metres transect ranging up to 25% - 120%, and bracken in transect 4metres up to 25%. We also found small and large twigs in transects 4metres, 8 metres and 12meters ranging up to 15 – 70 %, we found a lot of moss in transect 0metersup to 40% and some in transect 8metres 5%. We also found some weed in transect 0metres up to 30%. We found very little leaf litter in transect 0metres and 8metres about 8 – 6% and 10% of green leaves in transect 12metres. I was surprised to see quite a lot of bracken in a path.
I discovered that the highest amount of ground cover in the deciduous woodland was dry bracken was found in 2 of the four quadrats ranging up to 100% - 130% I also found twigs in three of the four quadrats across the woodland. Across the path I had found green leaves, which was not seen, in any of the quadrats in the path or woodland. The total amount of grass across the path was 10%.
I went into deciduous woodland and found that my results that my results for temperature, soil ph, light reading and soil moisture was like this:
Woodland
- Soil ph 7
- Light reading B
- Soil moisture 2
Path
- Soil ph 6
- Light reading A
- Soil moisture 3.5
These results above help me to agree with my hypothesis which is that:
“where there are trees the temperature will be lower, there will be less light, less soil moisture and a different soil ph and fewer plants will be growing on the ground.”
I do agree with my hypothesis because I had predicted that the temperature would be lower in the woodland and higher across the path. But the temperature is quite close in both across the path and in the woodland. This might be because the canopy of the trees might be intercepting so its not allowing light to reach the ground. I had also predicted that where there are trees the soil ph in the woodland would be more acidic where as across the path the soil ph will be less acidic. The light reading, in the woodland will be less making it darker and across the path there will be more light making it lighter. This is what I had predicted about the light reading and I was correct because as you can see above that the light reading in the woodland is A which is darker and across the path it is g-h which is lighter. My reason for my prediction is that in the woodland the trees will be intercepting the light allowing less light to penetrate. Across the path there will be lighter because there are no trees to intercept the light this will also lead to less plants being able to grow in the woodland due to less light being able to reach the ground. About the soil moisture I had predicted that there would be less soil moisture where there are trees and again I was correct. My results show that the soil moisture in the woodland is 2, which is low, and across the path it is 2.5, which is high. My reason for my prediction is that in the woodland there are trees, which intercept the rain meaning less rain reaches the ground that is why, there was low soil moisture. Where as across the path the soil moisture I had predicted to be higher because there is nothing to intercept the rain so there will be more rain across the path leading to high soil moisture.
The management hypothesis
“The way a woodland is managed has little affect on its ecosystem.”
This hypothesis is asking me to describe how woodland is managed and it is also asking me to describe how those managements affect its ecosystem and to say wether it has a little or a huge affect.
The four types of managements are listed below.
- Estate management
- Recreational management
- Educational management
These are the four managements that can be found in the woodlands.
Deciduous woodland
In the deciduous woodland the main management that is found is the recreational management. Recreational management is looking after the surroundings and encouraging more people to the woodland. Encouraging people into the woodland can be done in many different ways. One of the ways that people can be encouraged into the woodland can be done by planting different types of trees and plants. If this is done then these plants and trees can attract different types of wildlife, which will deffinetly, attract more people. If the trees in the woodland are all the same then that is boring, that will not attract any people. By having shops, benches, bins, car park and height barriers can help to improve the woodland. If there are shops then the people can go into the shop and buy whatever they want to. In this way they don’t have top bring any thing with them. Near the sops it will a good idea to have quite few benches so that the people can sit and have their lunch and they can also rest on the benches while touring around the woodland. These benches should be on the sides of the path to make the pathway safe for the elderly and the kids. Also having a play area with the shop and the benches is another way of how people can be attracted. Having a play area is good because the people who come into the woodland have kids with them then the kids can go into the play area and play, this will stop them from being bored. This play area can contain slides and swings for the youngster. Also near to the shops there should certainly be bins so that the people can dump their litter in the bins instead of throwing it into the woodland. Having bins is looking after the woodland. If there are bins then they need to make sure that those bins are cleared out before the litter can reach the ground. If it does then the litter will make the woodland look UN attractive. When the people do come into the woodland then there should be a car park where they can park their cars. If woodland doesn’t have a car park then the people will just go and park their cars into the woodland, which will destroy the woodland. Having a car park is another way to look after the surroundings (woodland). One major point that I will now mention is that if woodland has a car park then they should most definitely have a height barrier. This height barrier will stop UN wanted guests such as lorries and vans from different companies coming into the woodland and dumping their litter into the woodland. If this litter has been dumped then the woodland will not get any people coming into the woodland. This also helps to look after the surroundings. To make the woodland a safe are for the people there should be information board as you enter the woodland. This will help the people to know where they are going to go. It will also give information about the woodland such as telling them what kinds of animals could be seen in the woodland. Information boards and signs should be along the path to give directions to the people. These are the ways on how the deciduous woodland is managed. It is all recreational management. Another last point on how to look after the surroundings is controlling bracken. If bracken is not controlled then it can grow a big height if it does it will be very hard to clear as it is poisonous.
When I had visited Bishops wood I saw a lot of different ways of recreational management. I saw different types of trees, which had attracted different types of wildlife. The evidence for all this is can be seen on the map. I knew that these different trees had attracted different types of wildlife because as we entered Bishops Wood we saw a big information board giving out information about Bishops wood and what can be seen in the woodland such as what animals can be found and where about. Also next to the information board a big bin can be found. But this bin was full with litter and some rubbish could be seen on the floor. Now this tells me that the bins had not been cleared out making the woodland look UN attractive as this litter can be seen as you enter the woodland. A car park and a height barrier can also found as you enter the woodland. One other thing that I had noticed was that as you enter the woodland near the car park there were different kinds of flowers, which made the entrance attractive. There were no shops in this woodland at all, meaning no toilets and there weren’t no toilets either. If people are touring around the woodland and they are touching plants and trees and when they need to eat lunch they would want to wash their hands but they can’t do this because there are no toilets in this woodland. When we went to Bishops wood we had to eat our lunch without washing our hands because there were no toilets in the shops because there were no shops. As we toured around the woodland I saw quite few benches on the side of the path. More benches and bins were found in the area where we had our lunch. I think having only one or two bins in the whole of the woodland is poor management and if these bins were far from each other then where would the people put their litter. They are obviously going to throw it on the floor. Another poor management that I had discovered was that as we were walking on the path there were sings that were hidden behind bushes. You want to put those signs where people can see them. In this case we couldn’t see them at all. We only saw them when we walked past them. I also saw control of bracken. I noticed this because the bracken was all brown instead of green. But there was no control of bracken in the entrance of the woodland. We didn’t see any play areas for the little kids either which is also poor management.
Conclusion
I do not agree with the hypothesis “The way a woodland is managed has little affect on its ecosystem”
I don’t agree with the hypothesis because the way woodland is managed has a huge affect on its ecosystem.
Evaluation
While doing this coursework I worked really good with everyone. I got on with every one that I worked with in Bishops wood and in lessons. The two girls and 1 boy that I was working in Bishops wood were really hard working. We got all our work finished in Bishops wood and we did everything on time. We worked fairly so that we all had a chance to do the experiments. To do the experiments in Bishops wood we used all the following:
Twelve meter transect
half meter quadrat
soil testing kit
Barium sulphate
universal indicator
distilled water
ph identification chart
thermometer
soil moisture meter
a light meter.
These were all the equipment that we used while we were in Bishops wood. When we went to Bishops wood I developed a lot of skills such as teamwork. And commutation with my team
One of the things that I enjoyed was doing the experiments in deciduous woodland. This is because it was nice and dry where as in the coniferous woodland it was pouring with rain, and also in the coniferous woodland there was bracken all over the ground this made it really hard for us to walk. The bracken was really tall. This tells me that the coniferous woodland is poorly managed. In the coniferous woodland it was difficult for us to do the experiment because it was really horribly wet. So doing the experiments in the coniferous woodland and having my lunch in the rain was what I didn’t enjoy and I enjoyed doing the experiments ion the deciduous woodland.
Doing the experiments in the coniferous woodland was the hardest because it was raining and it was really difficult but doing the experiments in the deciduous woodland was the easiest because it was dry with a bit of sunshine. I think that I have completed the tasks really well because I had no problems doing them and because I didn’t find them hard to do.
Having more time could have helped. Because we only had a few hours to do all the experiments we were rushing through our work. It would have been better if we had more then a few hours to do the work. We could have done the deciduous woodland one-day and the coniferous woodland the other day.
I think that we could also have done an experiment to find out which animals the trees have attracted and why. We could have gone into the deciduous woodland and tried to figure out what animals are attracted to the tree. We could have done this by looking around for clues, which would lead us top an animal close by to the tree. If we had done this, this would have helped us to know what tree attracts what kinds of creatures and why. This could have also helped me to agree or disagree with the hypothesis “the way a woodland is management has a little affect ion its ecosystem.” This is because if the animals destroy the woodland then that is poor management. This will also tell me that the animals are supposed to be there and if they are supposed to be there then they would obviously affect the environment.
Since I have started this coursework and doing the experiments I have learnt a lot about geography and the environment. Also going to bishops wood has told me that learning about the environment is real fun. I really enjoyed doing the experiments. I loved learning about the environment, it makes me want to go to more geography trips more then anything, as I love learning about the environment. Overall I think that I worked really well, I loved doing this coursework. To mark my self out of 10 I think that I would give my self 10 out of 10 because I think that I had worked at best and having enjoyed the trip.
