Post assignment #4: Duaa Khan

The abiotic factors that affect our plant are sunlight, climate/weather, and the amount of space. Some biotic factors that affect our plants includes, parasites, competition, and predators. When visiting the garden this past week, I noticed weeds that were around our plants. Clearly, our plants did not have much space to grow to due to the competition and lack of room. Not only that, but I noticed several ants on the plants slowly eating away our leaves as it has small punctures. An example of abiotic factor is changing weather. As it begins to touch the very peak of winter, the weather has become quite chilly. Since the temperature will decrease, our plants will have to adapt to the upcoming weather.

My plant is involved with competition mainly because there are multiple weeds that grew incredibly close to my plant, as it is consuming much of the sunlight and space. As you pluck out weeds they soon regrow as they tend to reproduce rapidly. Because the weed is also consuming the sunlight and taking up the space, it is essentially negatively impacting our pants.

Through the aspect of competition, the “losers” and “winners” are chosen by the one who is successfully able to sustain its life. Sometimes however, it is not always clear as to who is winning. This is because it could become hard to differentiate the overall appearance of a plant. Seemingly, they might look just as same like they both look somewhat healthy. Not only that but, plants will adapt to the circumstances given. As the plant struggles for its life, it will try to adapt to the scenario to possibly survive.

Most plants get the nitrogen they need to grow from the soils or water in which they live. Animals get the nitrogen they need by eating plants or other animals that contain nitrogen. When organisms die, their bodies decompose bringing the nitrogen into soil on land or into ocean water. Bacteria alter the nitrogen into a form that plants are able to use. Other types of bacteria are able to change nitrogen dissolved in waterways into a form that allows it to return to the atmosphere.

In our garden, secondary succession has been taking place. This is because students decided to create a garden from the dead space on campus. With this, they added soil already to help the pants that will be planted there grow.  Before our plants, there were other various seedlings that were removed after they had died. The removal of as to make room for our plants. The garden boxes were made in an area that had soil, it just was not the ideal soil for most plants to grow and thrive. Therefore not many plants were able to thrive there until people made a small garden. This rapidly sped up the process of succession, but it still evolved from dirt to a nice garden where plants are finally able to thrive.