habitat trips

I went to Lake Temescal again as it has several different type of habitat all in one area. the habitats I chose to focus on were the grassland areas and the (mostly) oak forest area. following the recent rain, I saw a good variety of fungi in both habitats, generally the fungi in the grassland habitat were gilled mushrooms, whereas in the forest habitat I found an earth star, a bolete and some sort of jelly-like fungus. This suggests the fungi in the different habitats are adapted for different methods of spore dispersal. There was pretty much no observable animal life in the grassland, presumably due to the fact that it is very exposed and offers little protection from birds or other predators. The animals I saw in the forest were mostly molluscs, insects and other arthropods. Their small size enables them to exploit the natural protection from predators offered by rotting logs and other vegetation, most of these also had very small eyes or no obvious eyes at all, showing their adaptation to a habitat where there is little to no light.

Posted on 05 March, 2014 04:35 by jrpscott