Presque Isle

The class took a trip to the beautiful Presque Isle forest on Wednesday morning. We found examples of the different types of relationships between organisms.

Parasitism is when one organism benefits from the other by doing harm to it. We saw plenty of mosquitoes, which are a great example of a parasite. We also found a tree with a gull. A gull is a big hump of wood that has encased itself around fungus to keep it from hurting the tree. The fungus is a parasite to the tree.

Commensalism is another relationship where an organism benefits from another without doing harm or good to it. We found a big spiderweb on a tree. The tree is a place for the spider to set up it's web so it can catch food. The spider isn't hurting nor helping the tree.

Another relationship is known as mutualism. In mutualism both species benefit from eachother. We found a tree with a big hole in it from a Pileated woodpecker. It looks as though the woodpecker is hurting the tree but in reality it's eating insects that harm the tree. The woodpecker benefits from the insects in the tree and the tree benefits from the woodpecker killing the harmful insects.

We also explored competition between species. An intraspecific competition is between the same species. We saw deer who compete for food, water, and shelter. In this case these two are a mom and baby who aren't exactly competing but they do with other deer.

We also found interspecific competition. Interspecific competition is between two different species. This baby pine was competing for sunlight with the big striped maple next to it.

We found a micro-habitat under a rock. There appeared to be ants and some kind of fly wandering around. It was hard to tell if they were competing or working together. The soil under the rock provided nutrients. The rock posed as the protection/shelter for the insects.

As mentioned earlier we saw two deer wandering through the woods. The picture below shows the baby following mom.

They wandered through the tall grass. They eat the long grass, saplings, and other vegatation. They also lay down and sleep on the tall grass under trees that provide shade. Below is a picture of what appears to be a resting place for deer.

Decomposition is an important part of Presque Isle's biogeography. Wood is decomposed when trees fall from storms with strong winds or even weakened from occurrences such as disease. Decomposers such as moss and mushrooms break down the wood releasing the nutrients into the soil. Rain helps the nutrients travel into the roots of plants around. Other factors in Presque Isle's biogeograhy is the sun and wind. The sun produces energy for photosynthesis within the plants. Wind carries seeds and buds from trees and plants to spread out the population. Animals feed off the water and live under the shade of the many mature trees that live there.

 We learned that the shore of lake superior use to be where this lineup of trees are below:

We picked an area and placed a circle of string around it. We observed it for 30 minutes. I noticed there was a mushroom and an abundance of moss working to decompose wood. There was also grass growing on the wood.

 I wrote a poem about the little community.

The tree that fell once was well

It now acts as home for some unknown

Mushroom, moss, and grass

Have found a sacred home at last

Mushroom and moss decompose

As grass grows and grows

The small community works together

As the wood becomes weathered

As time continually passes by

The tree will no longer be seen by the naked eye

I really enjoyed wandering around the woods of Presque Isle. We encounted many animals and pretty orange  mushrooms. Below are the rest of the pictures our group took.