Expert: Walter Hintz - 6/5/2006

Question
The data below was taken during a study of an abandoned agricultural field.  Scientists counted the number of different kinds of herbs, shrubs, and trees present in the field one, 25, and 40 years after it has been abandoned.  

Question 1:  What are three conclusions about what is occurring in the field after analyzing the trends in these data?  

Question 2:  What is your rediction of the relative numbers (less than, greater than, equal to) of herbs, shrubs, trees, and the total number of plant species that you would expect to see 100 years after abandonment of the field?  (Simple prediction and reasoning?)

                         Time after abandonment
                            of agri. field
                                                                         1 yr    25 yrs    40 yrs
Number of herb species    31        30       36
Number of shrub species    0         7       19
Number of tree pecies      0        14       22
TOTAL number of species   31        51       77

Thank you,
~Teresa  

Answer
question 1 conclusions
 Shrubs appear before trees
 It takes a long time for the biodiversity to increase
 The field is undergoining ecological succession.

question 2

 In 100 years thewill be a greated biodiversity and the number of trees will increasing faster than the shrubs.