Tree-Species Density across Environmental Gradients Zones - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages Vegetative populations proliferate in a given section of land when conditions of moisture, temperature, and soil composition favor certain species at the expense of others. Experiments of this sort are crucial to enhancing our understanding of species diversity.
 Similar ecological conditions can exist between both mountainous regions and ravine systems. Either of these landscape systems can yield effects on communities of vegetation, providing niches where they may not otherwise exist. Landscape effects can be hydrological, thermal, and these locations are known to produce microclimates with influences on soil moisture and nutrient availability.
 The hydrological cycle in the region can experience variations in water infiltration within the soil, proclivities towards erosion/soil retention, movements of air fronts and dry adiabatic lapse rates; all relating to the slope of the terrain, or lack thereof. Terrain slopes affect soil types, which impact the growth of a variety of plants, which itself influences sunlight availability, which influences the success of subsequent vegetation. These combinations cause vegetation to arrange in communities favoring undergrowth/ground cover, shrubs, and canopy trees. Trees are of specific importance for this study, which will document tendencies of five species to colonize either of three environmental gradient-levels upon sloping terrain.
 These gradient-levels form zones that will naturally distribute similar plants along a horizontal axis to take advantage of the slope conditions most favorable to them, while the most variation will occur along a vertical axis, as soil and air conditions vary with elevation.
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