Discussions about the vegetation and flora

1 Vegetative pattern is quite variable with response to movement from coastline to estuarine area.

2 Moving towards the estuaries, the chlorophyll content of grasses significantly increases. This might be because of the fact that some conditions such as extra salinity or lack of nutrition boost chlorophyll production to produce energy.

3 Patches of Casuarina sp. which were first found to be developing in isolated bushes in the coastline, slowly while moving towards the estuary, these surrounded a tree and then they are growing. This might be because of a symbiotic activity of change in survival modes.

4 Surprisingly, 4 new species of plants were observed in the mid-coastline and 2 new species were observed in the estuary because of a transitional zone between the terrestrial and aquatic.

The following data can be recorded for each quadrate

□Cover – this is the most common measure of plant abundance. It involves estimating the percentage of the quadrate that is covered by each plant type. Plants may overlap each other in layers therefore it is possible to get a total percentage cover that is greater than 100%.

□Species density – this involves counting the number of plant species within the quadrate. The average number for all quadrates is then calculated giving a total number of plant species per square meter (if the size of the quadrate used was 1 m2).

□Species frequency – this involves calculating the percentage of quadrates that contain each plant species.

Frequency (in %) = (no. of quadrates in which species occurred ) divided by (the total no. of quadrates studied ) x 100

□ Density– Density of a species occurring in a community is an expression of its numerical strength. It represents the no. of individuals of a species in any unit area. it gives an idea of the degree of competition. it is calculated as –

Density = total no. of individuals of the species in all quadrates divided by no. of quadrates in which that particular species is found.

□ Abundance– It is the community refers to the no. of individuals of that species per unit area. it is calculated by –

Abundance =( total no. of individuals in all quadrates) divided by( no. of quadrates in which the particular species is found )

Other parameters measured:-

1 TOTAL NO. OF DIMENSIONS CHOSEN 2 TOTAL NO. OF UNKNOWN SPECIES DETECTED 3 TOTAL NO. OF KNOWN SPECIES DETECTED 4 AVERAGE SPECIES ABUNDANCE VALUE 5 AVERAGE SPECIES RICHNESS VALUE 6 AVARAGE HEIGHT OF CASUARINA SP 7 AVARAGE BARK CIRCUMFERENCE OF CASUARINA SP 8 AVARAGE CANOPY COVER OF CASUARINA SP

The data recorded from our quadrates

AREAS

a = 1m^2 b = 2 m^2 c = 4 m^2 d = 8 m^2

e =16 m^2 f =32 m^2 g =64 m^2 h=128 m^2 I = 256 m^2

a

b

d

e

f

g

h

i

c

This is the minimum size of quadrate used