A.P. Physics

6 June 2011

“Seeing the Forest for the Trees: What's in Your Woods?”

Initially the question is posed “What is so important about forests?” and then more specifically “what environmental factors contribute to species diversity?” So firstly and most obviously forests provide humans with resources for manufacturing, but more importantly replenish the air supply, act as indicators for the health of an ecosystem, and also remove pollutants from our atmosphere, and act as a home for wildlife of all types. The project then calls for statistical information to see specifically what affects they types of trees that grow in forests.

By making a pie chart I was able to identify the most abundant trees in the data of the sample given of 20 plots given to me. Of all the different species of trees, Red Oak (34%) and Red Maple (34%) were the most common, adding up to a 68% of all the trees in the area. Then importing the Auburn forest inventory analysis data I could visualize the data presented in Auburn, Maine. I then separated a specific group of data labeled “Plot #2” and made a histogram of the data I order to see the abundance of specific trees in the area of Auburn. Of 5 different species, the Red Maple (6/17 trees (35.3%)) and Balsam Fir (5/17 trees (29.4%)) were the 2 most prominent trees. I then compared the pie chart with the over all average of tree abundance and the histogram to see if there were any similarities. In both the Red Maple was the most prominent but the second most prominent was the Red Oak for the Pie Chart and the Balsam Fir for the histogram. The advantage of using a culmination of the 20 plots instead of just 1 plot (“Plot #2”) is that the average is more truthful of the area and the more specific in a plot one gets the more chance for unusual anomalies such as a unique micro climate caused by a swamp or a rocky terrain only allowing certain trees to grow.

I then imported a second data set from Nokomis, Maine. Then the Nokomis data set was used to make a histogram and to then be compared to the histogram of Auburn. As stated before, the most prominent trees in Auburn were the Red Maple and the Balsam Fir however in Nokomis the dominant trees were the Northern White Cedar and the Paper Birch. Since the Northern White Cedar and Paper Birch are not the dominant trees of the 20 plots averaged out initially we know that this is unique to the area. Clearly this is an example of how Nokomis’ plot was change due to a unique difference in climate or terrain. Bio-diversity is temperature and pressure dependant as pressure is related to temperature. This relationship can be seen in the formula P1V1/T1 = P2V2/T2.

To better examine the dynamics of temperature as well as precipitation and bathymetry, My World GIS provides the user with many applications. This included allowing the user to add a layer of a 30 year average of precipitation, a 30 year average of temperature, and also a layer of bathymetry and elevation. Elevation would affect pressure and temperature. The bathymetry (depth of bodies of bodies of water) would affect the humidity and amount of water in the air thus affecting precipitation. The amount of precipitation would allow for only certain trees to grow. However based off of a 20 plot average, the 2 most dominant species in the environment that Maine provides are the Red Oak and Red Maple.