Today was our third day in the Barrington Wilderness. Our goal is to reach an understanding of how species composition and abundance (trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants) change between former farmland and Barrington Headwaters. Examination of the specific transitional zone along the border land is key to accomplishing our goal. Our border exists on the property line between Warren Farm and Barrington Headwaters. One of our crew was almost consumed by ticks, but we managed to save her.
Day 3 in the bush. Starving. the crew realizes we must ration the blueberries and Indian Cucumber root we've foraged despite the elements. Thus far, we have completed five plots and have found some very interesting things. On the property, there are numerous logging trails on the Warren Farm side of the border and the Barrington Headwaters clearly harbors a higher biodiversity, but again, this is an initial visual inspection. We will know for sure in the coming days when we finish collecting our data and begin analyzing.
The land itself is very cool. It takes us roughly twenty minutes to walk from the Christmas Tree Stand on Warren Farm to the property line. The walk itself is not strenuous, but it does take us far from any inhabited area. Even deep within the woods, we come across signs of human activity in the form of recent and past logging and where we are conducting our work, there are huge granite boulders that are the clear result of glacial activity in the past.
While our goals of this work are fairly straightforward (comparing plant species abundance and composition between different properties), we hope that our work will give us and future researchers, a clear view of how composition and abundance change over time and space. This study will lay the groundwork for further investigation; i.e. animal habitat study, substrate study, and land use implications.
No comments:
Post a Comment