The Influence of Aspect on Forest Diversity

at Lime Hollow Nature Center

Introduction:
Lime Hollow Nature Center is a preserve in Central New York and is a deciduous
forest. Our class went into the woods to learn about a microclimate which is the climate
of a very small or restricted area, especially when this differs from the climate of the
surrounding area with tree species on a north slope and a south slope to compare and
contrast soil samples for ph, moisture, and temperature. My hypothesis is we will find
more Maple trees in the North slope because they will get more sun on the North slope.

Methods:
The morning class took samples on the south slope and the afternoon class took
samples on the north slope with the same procedures. Starting from the baseline, 5
teams selected 2 random popsicle sticks for a number of paces we had to go to outline
a sampling quadrat of a 5m radius. Then record the species and DBH of every tree
over a 4” inch diameter. After that we then sampled 5 random locations on the slope - 3
within the tree sampling quadrants and two others you deem random and representative
of the area being studied. We put 5 centimeters of soil into a bag representing each
location. At the same time one group would measure the soil temperature and the other
would measure the moisture of the soil with a vernier probe at each of the five locations.
Once we recorded the temperature and moisture of the soil, our goal now was to find
the importance value which is the density plus dominance divided by 2. We then came
back inside to to measure the ph values of the 5 different sites. There were 5 beakers
for the 5 different sites. We put filter paper in a funnel and put the soil from each of the
5 different sites in each of the filter paper. Next we poured water into each of the
funnels with the filter paper and stirred it to help it go through the funnel easier. It took
about 10 minutes for it to get through the funnel. We used a vernier probe to measure
the ph of the 5 sites.
Results:

As you can see in figure 1 it shows that on the north slope the dominant tree
specie was Hemlock and in figure 2 it shows that on the south slope it was Black
Cherry. There were five tree species recorded on the south slope than the north slope.
In figure 1, Hemlock had the highest importance value and in figure 2 Black Cherry had
the highest importance value. In the south slope the moisture percentage was 16.76
but the north slope had a percentage of 14.26. The other thing that was significant was
the soil temperature. The north soil had a temperature of 11.94 and the south soil was
12.12.

Discussion:
At Lime Hollow there were many differences between the two slopes. Other than
the different tree species there were other things too. This was to be expected because
we looked at two different microclimates. In my hypothesis I thought there would be
more Maple trees in the north slope because it would get more sunlight in the north, but
that was not the case. There were 2 Maple trees in the south slope and 1 Maple tree in
the north slope. The reason for that is the south gets more sunlight than north. The
north is more moist and cooler than the south which is why there are more Maple trees
at the south slope. Other than the Maple trees the two slopes did not have the same
kind of tree. There were a variety on the south slope and only a few on the north slope.
On the south there were Red Pine, Norway Spruce, Black Cherry, and White Ash. On
the north side it had Hemlock and Beech thus including Maple. The Maple tree in the
south had a lower relative dominance than the maple in the north which is weird
because the south has more Maple than the north. The maple likes to live in warmer,
drier climate than a moist, wetter area because they are more suited for those kind of
conditions.

Resources:
Lab sheet, The Influence of aspect on Forest Diversity by Chad Devoe.
 "Definition Of Microclimate - Google Search." Google.Com, 2017,

https://www.google.com/search?q=definition+of+microclimate&rlz=1CAHPZV_enUS767US
767&oq=definition+of+mi&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j0l4.5950j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=
UTF-8.

Appendix: