Canopy Understory And Ground Cover Essay

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1. What kinds of trees are present in the canopy, understory, and ground cover?

In the canopy there was a large abundance of chestnut oak, white oak, red oak, and black oak. Beech, elm, and ash species were also present in the canopy with seemingly smaller DBHs and fewer in number than the oaks species. However, the understory was quite different. The main seedlings and sapling were striped maple. Multiflora rose, or what I call the thorny-devil, was present in some areas. Interestingly, there was a singular presence of fern, but by the time I wanted to take a picture it was nowhere to be found!

2. What can you infer about the history of the land?

The area seems to be an old growth forest. According to observations of large, dead trees and the lack of coppice trees, I infer that it was a piece of the Grove property. However, this section was not plowed for farming. I would guess that this stand was left alone for wildlife and nature to take its course. However, the presence of oak suggests there was lack of deer browsing. So, I looked at the graph Alex from Allegheny national forest showed us that described the US deer population from 1450 to 2014. According to the graph, the white-tailed deer population …show more content…

Currently, the stand has relatively non-existent vertical structure. Wildlife loves vertical and horizontal heterogeneity of landscapes. I would also want to make sure that there are more deciduous tree species as deciduous forests have a greater biodiversity because they are more edible than conifers. While I would want more deciduous trees, there would need to be a polyculture of native deciduous tree species because different trees sustain different types of wildlife which adds to the biodiversity. Within the deciduous forest there could be a few evergreens here and there since wildlife, such as deer, during the winter feed on conifers due to the defoliation of deciduous

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