sgamponia's Journal

I would like to document the ecological interactions that occur between birds, insects and plants in native ecosystems. I'll take a photo of plant, bird and insect species and in the notes document the observation under notes.

The thing I ‘ll look at is to get a proportion of trees, shrubs, grass and herbaceous ground cover. Then I’ll look at how tar away they are from water. Next, I try to determine the 2 most dominant species, and determine whether they are introduced or native. All the while I’m noticing anything that’s moving—birds and insects and the plants they interact with.

Determine the dominant trees, shrubs and ground cover in an area.

Estimate by area or the ratio of native to invasive plants.

0–invasive/degraded: >99% aggressive invasive plant species <1% native plant species
1–native survivors: 1%-10% native species, 90% alien plant species
2–restoration potential
3–native foothold: 40%-60% alien introduced, plant species, 40%-60% native plant species
4–Restored: 75%-90% native plant species
5–Pristine: 90-99% native species

The project “Native Plants in Maui’s Coastal Ecosystems” can help one learn to recognize Maui’s native plants.