Conrad's Beach Ecological Succession Report

Ecological Succession Report of Conrad’s Beach
Anthony Cormier (B00719104), SCIE 1505X October 23rd 2015
Abstract – The study to prove that ecological succession occurred at Conrad’s beach took place at Conrad’s beach in Nova Scotia. Species richness, height and amount of organic material was sampled by using a 1m x 1m quadrat. As predicted the abundance and size of the organisms were larger further as the groups got further from the sand dunes.

Introduction
In ecological succession plant life starts and changes over time in a progressive way and is a process that can be observed along coastal regions all over the world. Primary succession often begins with small prokaryotes and protist that get washed up on shore. Lichens and

When reviewing figure 3 it has been noted that most of the species are more abundant further in the woods and the most significant change is in the moss and the amount of coverage which was substantially different depending upon the distance from the dune to the woods. The numbers fluctuated - dropping slightly at 60 m and rising to its highest point at 75 meters. Trees also had a very noticeable change in their percent coverage starting below 10% and rising close to 5 percent every 15 meters. The other plants did not show any specific trend of growing more the further way from the dune but this could be due to where the quadrants were placed as each team placed their quadrat down every 15 meters which resulted in a lot of ground left uncalculated. This could be the reason for lack of trends with other plants. Upon review of the height of the plants there was a significant difference from the start of the dune to the end of the transect. For example, at the plants at the dune had an average height of 1.46 meters with a standard deviation of ± 1.18 meters. Every 15 meters the average height increased and by the 90 meter mark the average height was 4.11 meters with a standard deviation of ±6.33 meters. This is a difference of 2.65 meters between the dune and the end of the transect. This establishes that the back of the forest is older as there is more growth and the plants are taller in that