The paper “Study of Variation of Vegetation and Animals of the Chichester State Forest ” is a great example of biology coursework. Forests have existed for around 420 million now but have undergone various changes such as evolution as well as human interference. Chichester State Forest in Australia has gone undergone such changes most notably deforestation with the current trees being a result of regrowth and plantations. A survey to find out whether there is any difference between small mammals, plants, and habitat structure and older and younger plantation was conducted using observation, interviews, and questionnaires.
The results were analyzed using mean, median, standard deviation, Coefficient of deviation and Petersen Estimates methods to verify whether the null hypothesis that there is no difference between small animals, plants, and habitat structure and older and younger plantation was tested. The findings indicated that there is a significant difference between small mammals (species richness and abundance), plants (species richness and abundance), and habitat structures. There was also a notable difference between the older and the younger generation. Introduction
During the Silurian period which was almost 420 million years ago, plants and arthropods started occupying the land.
As the years went on, the plants and arthropods adapted to their new homes. The initial forests were occupied by mosses, horsetail, and ferns that were approximately 40 feet tall. As evaluation continued, gymnosperms appeared in the late Paleozoic period. The first flowering plants then appeared in the Cretaceous period. As the flowering plants started to dominate the earth, insects, birds, and mammals also radiated rapidly. During the Pleistocene Ice Age, there was noted change- the tropical forests that had dominated the earth started disappearing as temperate forests spread in the Northern Tropics (Ucmp. berkeley. edu, 2016). As per today, forests occupy almost one-third of the earth’ s surface.
In these forests, there is a mixture of plants and animals of all kinds. The key structures of the forest ecology include plants, microbe, soils, atmosphere, and animals. Topography, altitude, and geology play an important role in determining the kind of structure a forest has (Kimmins, 2016).
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