liamfbc's Journal

I walked around the reservoir for roughly 40 minutes in between classes. It was surprisingly sunny outside with an enjoyable and cool temperature. I observed a ton of plant species, due to the abundance of green all around the reservoir. This ecosystem possesses all the 4 groups of plants from massive maple trees (angiosperms) to interesting nonvascular plants like the platygyrium repens (Bryophyta). These walks get more and more fun when associating our own observations to the classification we're progressively adding to in class. The reservoir as a whole (at least from what I observed) had high species richness but an unbalanced relative abundance, or low evenness in the sense that there was a large quantity of Archaeplastida. I also saw a lot of geese but they were all grouped near the end of the loop which I found unusual as I usually see them at the beginning and more separated. Maybe that it's due to exterior factors like climate or the hour of the day? Or maybe I've lost my mind and they always move around, for no reason. I was also surprised with some fungi (flavoparmelia) which I initially thought to be a moss-like plant.

I walked around the pine tree reserve for about 45 minutes after my classes Monday. It was a very sunny day although the temperature was enjoyably cool. It was only my second time talking a walk in the reserve and it was way quieter then I remembered, the silence only to be broken by the falling acorns and occasional joggers. I was surprised to see this much variety in fungi, although I was expecting to observe many of the same species, the species richness of this small area was completely unforeseen for me. The prominence of different kinds of fungi really demonstrates the adaptiveness of these eukaryotic organisms maybe due to their multicellularity. It would be interesting to look at the phylogenetic proximity of all these organisms of the eukarya domain, maybe some of them are closer related to some bacteria or archaea. Classification could get a bit confusing at times, especially with these organisms that usually don't have many obvious morphological individualities... During the walk I even saw a raccoon, I'm glad the picture didn't turn out so bad, he ran away just after I took it.

I walked around for about an hour in Houghton Garden before heading to class. It was a very sunny day although the temperature was enjoyably cool. Winter is definitely coming our way soon! The garden was bathed in complete silence only to be occasionally disrupted by the sound of numerous acorns falling on the ground. I observed various different (genetically & morphologically) types of organisms ranging from insects to fungi, making Houghton Garden a habitat for all kingdoms of classification. It was truly refreshing to see all this diversity of life, with species dispersed all over the evolutionary tree of life. There was a plethora of insects and flora but I was honestly surprised (and a bit disappointed...) by how little fungi I could find. I just think mushrooms look cool, sue me. However, I presume we'll be able to see more when the temperatures drop a bit more. Furthermore, it was really interesting to look at plants like the rhododendron or jewelweed because I would've never seen them in my hometown of Brive la Gaillarde. To top it off, I had this strange interaction with a Red squirrel, where after eating an acorn (whose debris fell right at my feet) we had a staring contest of a few minutes, followed by a photoshoot which was quickly interrupted. He just ran back up his tree...