Ecosystem

Due to the recent tree cutting activity Winstrom Park has been closed, therefore we decided to go to Stu Visser trails. This park consists of a main trail through a pretty densely lavished forest, including a river and two small ponds.

The ecosystem of Stu Visser trails includes a variety of animals. Every thing from beetles and minnows to coyotes and large mouth bass have the possibility of inhabiting this park. The property of this park has the ability to support many different types of animals because it's wide variety of marshes, rivers, ponds, trees, and so on. We found sign of many animals including even a coyote (right). The swampy and lush environment supports much of the prey the Coyote feeds on. 

Not only does the park consist of land based creatures, it also supports an expanse of water based creatures. We found evidence of ducks inhabiting our park, which makes sense because the pond in the park would support a lot of the things a duck likes to eat. On the top of the pond we even noticed some duck weed, a ducks favorite snack. These ponds also have the ability to support everything minnows and frogs to large mouth bass. As well, this pond can support a wide variety of algae that would be a tasty snack to all sorts of animals.

For land based creatures there's plenty of things for herbivores, the start of a food chain, to feed off of. There's all sorts of plants, flowers, and berries for things such as deer, rabbits, and birds to eat. The plentiful trees also support things such as squirrels are birds (left). We even found evidence that the birds eggs are being eaten by predators. This could be a result of another more dominant bird or possibly a scavenger coming along and eating whatever.







Here's an example of what a small portion of a food web for Stu Visser trails could consist of:

Spring Fever

As result of the tree removal taking place the trails of Winstrom Park are closed, therefore we were not able to thoroughly search the woods for signs of spring. However, we were able to find some evidence that spring is among us on the soccer fields and near the parking lot.

The trees getting taken down are Scotch and Austrian Pines because their life span is up. This means these trees are dying, if not dead, and could fall over and cause problems if not taken care of. 

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We were able to gather up a little evidence from the parking lot and field areas however!


When I think of spring I know the first thing that comes to my mind is blooming and reproduction. Now there are two types of reproduction: Asexual and Sexual reproduction


Sexual Reproduction (to the right):
- The most common form of reproduction among plants and animals (i.e. mating)


Asexual Reproduction (to the left):
- Reproduction used by bacteria, yeast, hydra, and some types of Jellyfish
- The organism splits into two or more individuals




Plants is the main focus of Spring however. The most common form of reproduction amongst plants is sexual. There a variety of ways one plant can pollinate another, whether it be shooting is pollen into the air, using other plants to pollinate it, or just simply touching each other. 

 

Human Pollution

Fortunately, this post is going to be a very short one. We found little to no evidence of pollution in our park! This is a wonderful accomplishment for Winstrom Park because I know that it has struggle with controlling the littering of its visitors.

Don't let this good news get to your head because it could possible be just because the number of visitors significantly drops during the winter months. To get a true handle on the amount of pollution, summertime is the best option. 

Reasons for Lower Levels of Pollution:

- Strict fines for littering

- Park Cleaners

- Colder weather

- Recent demolishing of trees

- Lots of Trash Cans

- We measured the amount of trash we found as we walked around the trails of the park. We hardly found any of this solid pollution anywhere, mainly in the river. This could be from places other than the park that is simply carrying it downstream. 

- Regardless, we measured out about 9 square inches of trash collected against this log. 

-Adding in the cigarette butts and other miscellaneous small items that were scattered about we considered that to be about another 9 inches (there were a lot of cigarette butts, probably because it's a frisbee golf course). 

- This gave us a total of 18 square inches of trash 

- Winstrom Park is about 200 acres in area

If I were to put an estimate on the amount of solid pollution (garbage) that is in the park at this point in time I would say it is about a square .09 square inches per acre