Human Effects on plant growth BY HADISSA & EMAD  Human Effects on plant growth

EXAMPLES OF HUMAN EFFECTS:

DEFORESTATION: Deforestation is the removal of trees from an area for development or agriculture. This has a significant impact animal and plant habitats. 

POLLUTION: The most common source of air pollution is combustion of fossil fuels usually from vehicle engines and power stations. When sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides combine with water in the atmosphere, they form acid rain, which intoxicates the soil and waters where it falls, causing damage to plants which affects plant growth.

USE OF CHEMICALS: Chemicals such as: pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, fertilisers and liming affect the growth and distribution of plants, and are likely to reduce biodiversity in a natural habitat.

OVER-HARVESTING: Over-harvesting depletes the soil of nutrients making it difficult for plants to grow.

Monocultures: Monocultures involves growing only one type of plant in a particular field which keeps depleting the soil of the same minerals, which are essential for healthy plant growth.

trampling PLANT TRAMPLING : tourists using the same trail over and over again trample the vegetation and soil, eventually causing damage that could lead to loss of biodiversity, and other impacts, such as: Aeration of soil Erosion Breakage of stems Reduced regeneration Decrease in air and water permeability These damages would affect plant growth.

OUR INVESTIGATION: THE AFFECTS OF TRAMPLING ON PLANT GROWTH: HYPOTHESIS: We believe that areas which aren’t trampled on will contain a high number and variety of plant species whereas in most trampled areas where the chance of physical damage is high and the soil is very compacted there won’t be varied species or enough plants grown. Compact soil prevents AERATION. Aeration of the soil is important for healthy growth of plants because the oxygen is needed: For plants to respire For microorganisms to respire as these are needed to decompose organic matter and for nitrification of soil To help plants to absorb water and nutrients through the roots To help prevent toxins forming in the soil

INDEPENDENT VARIAVBLE: We will be changing the location of where we count the number and species of plants using line transects. We will choose 4 different locations in the park to carry out our transects: area where people are less likely to go across (restricted areas), grass area near gates, grass area near the footpath and middle grass area between two footpaths. DEPENDENT VARIAVLE: We will be counting the number of different plant species found in the 4 given locations to conclude whether human impacts ‘trampling’ affects plant growth. We will be using transects to sample the different locations. A transect is a line across an area of habitat using a string or rope on the ground. The number of organisms of each species can be observed and recorded at regular intervals along the transect.

- measuring tape (line transects) CONTROL VARIABLES: The main factors which we will need to control are: The distance we choose to place our transects for all the locations should be kept the same The person who counts the plants should be kept the same RISK ASSESSMENT: There are no given risks. EQUIPMENT LIST: - measuring tape (line transects)

METHOD: We will take a long tape measure and stretch it across the first area we have chosen. we will then need to name and count the number of different species of plants across the line transect and record our results in the results table. We then need to repeat this exact process for the 4 different locations: area where people are less likely to go across (restricted areas), grass area near gates, grass area near the footpath and middle grass area between two footpaths. Lastly we shall repeat each location a further two times to calculate an average for reliability of our results – we will need to repeat and eliminate any anomalous data. We can then plot a graph to identify patterns in our results to see the affects of trampling on plant growth.

RESULTS TABLE: SPECIES 1 SPECIES 2 SPECIES 3 SPECIES 4 SPECIES 5   SPECIES 1 SPECIES 2 SPECIES 3 SPECIES 4 SPECIES 5 AVAERAGE OF ALL PLANTS RESITRCITED AREA AREA NEAR GATES AREA NEAR FOOTPATH MIDDLE AREA BETWEEN TWO FOOTPATHS AVERAGE OF EACH SPECIES

Our method well help us investigate how an example of human impact, i Our method well help us investigate how an example of human impact, i.e. trampling on plants affects plant growth using the line transect sampling technique in our method to collect quantitative results. We could further our investigation by repeating our investigation over a couple of months to compare the results overtime or we could compare our results to other results as well as online data to increase the reliability of our investigation.

…any QUESTIONS?