Human Effects On Maple Trees

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Exploring the effects of Human Activity on Soil pH and Maple Tree Growth Weston Hall Rochester Institute of Technology Abstract: Maple trees play an enormous part in the Northeastern United States economy as well as some parts of Canada. Wood from these trees is used to create quality lumber and the sites attract tourists from all over to the beautiful scene. Human activity has been proven to have a drastic effect on our natural environments. For example, soil pH and the growth of Maple trees. We preformed this experiment on the Rochester Institute of Technology campus, collecting soil samples from random locations along with determining the trunk diameter for each Maple tree, being assigned …show more content…

However, human activity is increasing and is having a negative effect on these ecosystems. These human activity include the release of harmful emissions like sulfate aerosol, which alters atmospheric albedos and causes weather change. Maple trees however are very sensitive to changes in climate, which could affect their growth patterns and alter their photosynthetic cycle. There are several other plants that respond in this manner (Moore et al, 1997). The constant use of pesticides and fertilizers leads to atmospheric pollution, which goes off to acidify the soil, which has been proven to stunt the growth maple saplings (Ramauian, 2006). Maple trees are also very valuable to us from an economic standpoint producing over 7 million gallons of maple syrup are produced a year with around 80% of that produced in the United States (Whetstone, 2014). After observing the Maple trees on the RIT campus, we noticed high variance in the diameter of the tree trunks choosing 9 random locations and within those selected locations we sampled 3 Maple trees along with a sample of the surrounding soils. We observed the tree diameter for each location and took samples to later determine the pH of the soils. Human activity was also noted to help determine whether the level of human activity at each site has a correlation with soil pH and with Maple tree diameter …show more content…

Our first test was regarding the soil pH and average trunk diameter gave us an r-value of 0.6956 and p-value of 0.03746, showing a significant negative correlation, as seen in Figure 3 below. Our second regarded activity level and soil pH, which showed a r-value of 0.6956 and p value of 0.03746 which indicates a significant positive correlation as seen in Figure 4 below. Last but not least, we ran our final test with regarded the activity level and the average trunk diameter, which resulted in an r-value of 0.9274573 and a p-value of 0.000312, showing a significant negative correlation as seen in Figure 5 below. Figure 3: Soil pH vs. Average Maple tree trunk diameter Negative trend Figure 4: Human activity vs. soil pH Positive

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