Tuesday's Photos - A sunny (but very windy) sand dune succession study!
Tuesday – by (mainly) Jack and Kalyan (but not really by Kalyan) - Today was to be based primarily around succession. Having been assured by Tim that one of the most prominent examples of this was a sand dune, we set off for Freshwater West. We were greeted by seemingly gale-force winds, but fortunately also a fair bit of sun. Using a point quadrat, we accurately compared the vegetation of the embryo-, fore-, semi-fixed- and fixed dunes. AS the day went on, the weather stayed fair and spirits were high as we came to our final activity; measuring how the height of salad burnett (which smells of cucumber when you crush the leaves) differed on trampled (on the path) and untrampled ground. The mini-experiment was, we were told, something done by the National Trust to provide evidence against human trespassing on the dunes…we found it to be both interesting and enjoyable. When back at the manor (and rejuvenated by banana cake), we carried out a student t-test on our results (involving calculating the standard deviation of our results) to see if our results were statistically significant. Dinner was a mouth-watering sausage casserole with chips followed by strawberry cheesecake and we slept soundly after a day of fresh air and bracing sea-winds!
Tuesday – by (mainly) Jack and Kalyan (but not really by Kalyan) - Today was to be based primarily around succession. Having been assured by Tim that one of the most prominent examples of this was a sand dune, we set off for Freshwater West. We were greeted by seemingly gale-force winds, but fortunately also a fair bit of sun. Using a point quadrat, we accurately compared the vegetation of the embryo-, fore-, semi-fixed- and fixed dunes. AS the day went on, the weather stayed fair and spirits were high as we came to our final activity; measuring how the height of salad burnett (which smells of cucumber when you crush the leaves) differed on trampled (on the path) and untrampled ground. The mini-experiment was, we were told, something done by the National Trust to provide evidence against human trespassing on the dunes…we found it to be both interesting and enjoyable. When back at the manor (and rejuvenated by banana cake), we carried out a student t-test on our results (involving calculating the standard deviation of our results) to see if our results were statistically significant. Dinner was a mouth-watering sausage casserole with chips followed by strawberry cheesecake and we slept soundly after a day of fresh air and bracing sea-winds!
