lokakuu 20, 2022

Another Newton Walk! :)

From my last walk through the woods behind Newton, I knew that there was a lot of biodiversity in the plant species that were present throughout the area, so I knew that this would be a good place to take the nature walk! The weather was slightly chilly and mostly sunny, but it was perfect weather for walking through the hilly trails and exploring along the river. There was a high relative abundance of flowering plants in this area based on what my friend and I noticed on the walk, as most of the plants that I observed on this walk were flowering plants or angiosperms (ex: nightshade, spindles, oriental bittersweet, goldenrods, hawkweeds). This high relative abundance reminded me about the order in which these plants evolved and dominated the land habitats, specifically how angiosperms were the most recent plant group to evolve and are currently the dominant group. There were fewer polypodiosida in the area than I expected, as I was only able to find a few ferns compared to the overwhelming variety of angiosperms that I encountered. As for the bryophyta and the gymnosperms, they were not overly abundant nor rare in this area, as I was able to find a few different species for each plant group. Compared to my past nature walks I definitely saw fewer bright flowers or elaborately colored plants, due to the decreases in temperature and the approaching winter weather, and this was honestly kind of a bummer since I really liked the variety of cool plants that I would see when walking around campus on a normal day. However, it is nice to see which plants are adapted to survive in these colder temperatures and withstand this near-winter weather that we're going to have, especially those angiosperms that are continuing to flower and produce fruit! I hope to explore a few other areas on and near campus before it gets too cold, since there are still so many unique plants and other organisms thriving in the area!

Julkaistu lokakuu 20, 2022 12:14 AP. käyttäjältä audreyb3380 audreyb3380 | 9 havaintoa | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

lokakuu 4, 2022

Walk through the Trails on Newton Campus!

On this nature walk, my friend and I went over to Newton Campus (a throwback to last year) and walked along the trails out behind Keyes. The weather was a little bit chilly (low to mid-50s) and it was partly cloudy, but it was nice weather for a walk. During the walk, we came across a mostly dried-up stream that kind of made its own path, so we walked along the rocks and down the stream until we converged with one of the trails. There were a lot of shrubs and different types of trees, but the only plant that I captured in an observation was pokeweed. This plant grew in my backyard as a kid, so seeing it brought back memories from when I was younger and I felt like I had to make an observation. As for the fungi, I definitely saw more species than I initially expected to. The most common location to find these fungi species were in decaying or fallen trees, as the organic compounds of these dead organisms need to be decomposed and recycled back into the soil. Different species also tended to be observed decomposing different plants or growing on different decaying tree types, which makes me wonder if this is influenced at all by diversifying selection with regards to speciation. Does each species of fungi tend to decompose different plant species, like the maggots with their egg-laying in apples and hawthorns? If this were the case, it would definitely contribute to the wide variety of species that I came across during this walk and explain the variety of locations where they were found. In general, there was a lot of variety in the shapes, colors, and other physical attributes between the different fungi populations that allowed me to infer that they were different species, relying on the morphological species concept. For example, the bright orange coloring of one of the fungi made it easy to differentiate it as being part of a different species from the brown and circular fungi or the white disc-like fungi. As for other organisms, we saw a LOT of chipmunks and squirrels on the walk, including two baby squirrels which we gave some birdseed that we had brought with us. This was a great walk and a great start to this short week! I'll definitely do another walk on Newton campus soon to explore the rest of the trails, so maybe my next Nature Walk assignment will be here as well!

Julkaistu lokakuu 4, 2022 09:47 IP. käyttäjältä audreyb3380 audreyb3380 | 7 havaintoa | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

syyskuu 30, 2022

Walk through Pine Tree Reserve and Part of the Reservoir

After classes I went for a walk with my friend around Pine Tree Reserve, down to a wooden trail by the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, and back through Pine Tree Reserve for one more lap on our way back. The weather was perfect for a walk at around 2:00pm, since the temperature was in the 60s and it was mostly sunny with some clouds of shade (honestly my ideal weather). In a place like Pine Tree Reserve where its on campus and is a frequent spot for people to stop and sit or walk around, there weren't any animals or any insects during this part of the walk. Instead, there were lots of fun and interesting plant species, including lots of brightly colored flowers and LOTS of different ferns. Of all the plants that we saw during this walk, half of them (if not more) were ferns since they covered most of the ground on several parts of the trail. On the way to the Reservoir trail that we found, I saw a bright blue grape-like berry growing on a vine along the gate which immediately caught my eye. Looking at the coloring of that plant and the practically neon orange mushroom that we found when walking on one of the partially fallen trees, I thought about the evolutionary benefits of being so brightly colored in these mostly-green environments. While the blue fruit was actually edible for humans (after looking up the plant on the walk), it gave an appearance of being poisonous and toxic due to its bright, almost unnatural color compared to the green plants surrounding it. This is a trait that could have similar benefits to the viceroy's orange coloring that mimicked the monarch butterflies: it deters predators since they will assume it is poisonous, allowing the plant to continue to survive and pass along these colorful traits to their offspring. We did see a couple animals on our walk as well, including the photographed blue jay, a couple of chipmunks, a heron sitting on a rock in the water, and a couple of swans that were too far away to properly photograph. There weren't many interesting organisms to identify on the part of the walk that went around the reservoir (which explains the gap in observation times, plus we had to climb down from a tree which took a little bit), but once we got back to Pine Tree Reserve for one final lap I wanted to document the sheer number of ferns that were in the area. This walk was a great way to ease into the Nature Walk assignments, and I'm super excited to continue these walks!

Julkaistu syyskuu 30, 2022 04:30 AP. käyttäjältä audreyb3380 audreyb3380 | 9 havaintoa | 0 kommenttia | Jätä kommentti

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