Thursday, November 17, 2016
Monday, November 14, 2016
Brooker Creek- Juan Amado
On November 4th my class and I went to Brooker Creek Preserve, It is one of the biggest natural areas in Pinellas county. The weather was great about 78 degrees.
During our walk in the trail we discussed the different characteristics of what a swamp, which is a very wet land ecosystem that has very poor drainage and is mostly dominated by trees. it was really cool to see how the surfaces changed from land to water.
We also got to see and discussed hammocks, high pine grassland and pine flatwooods. One of the most important thing for this ecosystem is fire because it gives the ecosystem the different nutrients it needs in order to survive.
As part of our trip, we saw different very few kinds of animals such as spiders, and birds.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Brooker Creek Preserve Blog
Madison Bommelaere
Brooker Creek Preserve
Brooker Creek
Brooker Creek, located on Keystone rd in Tarpon Springs is a vast and beautiful preserve. While exploring Brooker Creek(Keystone preserve) we observed many species of insects and birds including the HUGE Golden Orb Spider or also known as the Banana Spider and Vultures. There's many other animals including snakes and stuff hiding around, we just didn't see them. The preserve has a few different ecosystems such as a cypress swamp that's helps maintain water overflow, high pine grasslands, and pine flat woods. On this day we learned about indicator species, which is a species whose presence signifies that an entire integrated community of other species are present also like friends. Indicator species are also a sign that the ecosystem is healthy. We also learned about Keystone species which is a species that all the other species depend on. The disappearance of the keystone species means a loss in diversity of the animals in the ecosystem, like a gopher tortoise creating homes and hiding places for the other animals. We also learned about the type of wetlands including the Seepage Wet lands, Floodplain Wetlands, Basin Wetlands, and Forested Wetlands and how they help the whole world control over flooding, recharge aquifers, good source of carbon storage and that it's a great animal habitat. Another thing we learned about was the growing stages of Slash pines going from, Broom Stage, Grass stage, and Adult Stage. One of most important things we learned was the importance of fires. Fires are usually man made in to make the plants release nutrients to help the ecosystem grow more, burn off the dry dead leaves and stuff that can cause a uncontrollable wild fire, opens up space for the animals, controls disease and alters temperature and moisture which is beneficial to the ecosystem. These man made fires to help the ecosystem are called prescribed fires.
All in all Brooker creek is an awesome place to visit and hike with your family and friends and I extremely recommend this park. When my class and I visited it was a comfy 79 degrees but most of the park is shaded by forest and high trees that it would still be fine to go on a hotter day.
Brooker Creek Preserve
Brooker Creek
Brooker Creek, located on Keystone rd in Tarpon Springs is a vast and beautiful preserve. While exploring Brooker Creek(Keystone preserve) we observed many species of insects and birds including the HUGE Golden Orb Spider or also known as the Banana Spider and Vultures. There's many other animals including snakes and stuff hiding around, we just didn't see them. The preserve has a few different ecosystems such as a cypress swamp that's helps maintain water overflow, high pine grasslands, and pine flat woods. On this day we learned about indicator species, which is a species whose presence signifies that an entire integrated community of other species are present also like friends. Indicator species are also a sign that the ecosystem is healthy. We also learned about Keystone species which is a species that all the other species depend on. The disappearance of the keystone species means a loss in diversity of the animals in the ecosystem, like a gopher tortoise creating homes and hiding places for the other animals. We also learned about the type of wetlands including the Seepage Wet lands, Floodplain Wetlands, Basin Wetlands, and Forested Wetlands and how they help the whole world control over flooding, recharge aquifers, good source of carbon storage and that it's a great animal habitat. Another thing we learned about was the growing stages of Slash pines going from, Broom Stage, Grass stage, and Adult Stage. One of most important things we learned was the importance of fires. Fires are usually man made in to make the plants release nutrients to help the ecosystem grow more, burn off the dry dead leaves and stuff that can cause a uncontrollable wild fire, opens up space for the animals, controls disease and alters temperature and moisture which is beneficial to the ecosystem. These man made fires to help the ecosystem are called prescribed fires.
All in all Brooker creek is an awesome place to visit and hike with your family and friends and I extremely recommend this park. When my class and I visited it was a comfy 79 degrees but most of the park is shaded by forest and high trees that it would still be fine to go on a hotter day.
Saturday, November 12, 2016
Brooker Creek
Our class visited Brooker Creek to learn about High Pine Grasslands and Pine Flatwoods. Pine communities originally were located in the north and central parts of Florida. They were the most common ecosystem in Florida. That changed in the 19th century due to logging. High pine grasslands are found in spots with higher elevation where pine flatwoods are in lower elevation with flat terrain. The high pine grasslands have two forest layers which is the canopy and the ground layer. The pine flatwoods have 3 forest layers that are the canopy, shrub layer, and groundcover. Pine communities are very fire dependent and therefore the park does prescribed burns. It's basically a prescription to burn certain sections of the park to help the ecosystem. It helps the ecosystem by releasing nutrients, opening up space, reducing litter, and controlling disease. The organisms in this ecosystem are adapted to deal with fire. The wire grass is the most common ground layer that has a thick base with lots of leaves coming out of it. The slash pine has 3 stages. The grass stage is the first with leaves to protect from fires. Next is the broom stage which is the most sensitive. The last is the adult stage which has bark to protect from fires. Within the community there are indicator and keystone species. Indicator species are absolutely essential to the community and show signs that the ecosystem is intact. An example of this would be worms because plants need them. Keystone species are those that other species depend on to survive. The golfer tortoise is a good example because the holes they build are used as shelter for other species.The functions of pine communities are protection, shelter, lumber, carbon storage, water retention, and source of fire. Elevation changes in this ecosystem make all the difference. We saw secondary succession on the left and right sides of the trail. We could see that the whole understory looked different. The biggest threats to this ecosystem are fires, people, droughts, and development.
Friday, November 11, 2016
Brooker Creek Preserve
Tarpon Springs, FL
Our trip to Brooker Creek was on another nice day. I had never been to Brooker Creek Preserve and my first impression was a good one. It was a nice drive to get to the shelter that we were meeting at and then the trail we took around the preserve was nice. Brooker Creek is the largest preserve in Pinellas County and is approximately 8,000 acres. About 55% of the preserve is upland and 45% are wetlands and some of the preserve consists of hammocks. When we got started walking around the park, the first thing we noticed on the boardwalk was that on one side of the boardwalk was wet and the other side was dry. There was even different types of vegetation literally due to a few inches different elevation. The slight drop in the elevation allowed the water to pool and be more of a swamp area than a hammock. Some plants that are characteristic of a swamp include bald cypress that have "knees" that are their pnematophores and allow for gas exchange when the water levels are high. Other plants in a swamp are ferns and mosses. Both of these plants require a moist environment for their reproduction.
As we walked along the boardwalk, we talked about what characteristics are used to determine what a swamp is. The hydroperiod is important because it refers to how long the water, amount of water, and how fast the water evaporates between flooding. Determining where the water comes from in a swamp is also important because it can tell us what kind of swamp it is. One particularly interesting detail that I learned on this trip was that peat is formed in swamps and that it is a huge form of carbon storage in the environment. It gave me something to think about because a huge problem in climate chage is that there is too much carbon in the atmosphere and I never thought about ways that carbon was stored. Coal was an obvious one but I didn't think about the significance about peat, I thought its main function was to help maintain the water from draining.
Tarpon Springs, FL
Our trip to Brooker Creek was on another nice day. I had never been to Brooker Creek Preserve and my first impression was a good one. It was a nice drive to get to the shelter that we were meeting at and then the trail we took around the preserve was nice. Brooker Creek is the largest preserve in Pinellas County and is approximately 8,000 acres. About 55% of the preserve is upland and 45% are wetlands and some of the preserve consists of hammocks. When we got started walking around the park, the first thing we noticed on the boardwalk was that on one side of the boardwalk was wet and the other side was dry. There was even different types of vegetation literally due to a few inches different elevation. The slight drop in the elevation allowed the water to pool and be more of a swamp area than a hammock. Some plants that are characteristic of a swamp include bald cypress that have "knees" that are their pnematophores and allow for gas exchange when the water levels are high. Other plants in a swamp are ferns and mosses. Both of these plants require a moist environment for their reproduction.
As we walked along the boardwalk, we talked about what characteristics are used to determine what a swamp is. The hydroperiod is important because it refers to how long the water, amount of water, and how fast the water evaporates between flooding. Determining where the water comes from in a swamp is also important because it can tell us what kind of swamp it is. One particularly interesting detail that I learned on this trip was that peat is formed in swamps and that it is a huge form of carbon storage in the environment. It gave me something to think about because a huge problem in climate chage is that there is too much carbon in the atmosphere and I never thought about ways that carbon was stored. Coal was an obvious one but I didn't think about the significance about peat, I thought its main function was to help maintain the water from draining.
Once we reached a shelter on the path, we took a seat to talk about hammocks and high pine grasslands. The picture above depicts a high pine grassland. High pine grasslands are fire dependent communities. Fires, which are usually caused by lightning, burn the dead underlying brush and put those nutrients back into the soil. The pines are not harmed by the fires due to their insulated bark and high up canopies. Often times, the bark on the pines can be seen to be charred from previous fires. This can be seen in the picture at the bottom. When there is no fire in these environments, hardwoods become more common. This can pose a problem because hardwoods burn completely in fires and can burn too hot and long, causing other plants in this community to burn with them that would not normally burn in a quick fire.
This is a Golden Orb Weaver spider. They are non aggressive spiders.
Pictured here are animal tracks, most likely raccoon, in the marsh part of the trail. Raccoons are common in these environments, as they like to scavenge for food.
This pine tree has been charred around the trunk from a fire. Due to the insulation from the bark, the pine does not burn in the presence of a fire. Fires are beneficial in these communities because they get rid of the dead plants and recycle the nutrients back into the soil.
11/4/16
This park was established in 1992, this place has been a apart of my childhood and still til this day. It offers biking,hiking, horseback riding and FREE parking !Brooker Creek has a high pine grassland along with flat woods. the location is in Pinellas County tarpon springs,with about 9800 acres of land. This has offered many different homes to different animals such as a woodpecker, turtles and your typical rattle snakes here and there. i did notice that there was a canopy giving the forest floor a lot amount of shade. Due to this slight problem we can only have plan that don't require much sun and light rain falls. there was different types of plants ferns, pines, wire grass and saw palmetto. The visitor center is quite amazing actually. this gives students more information with a hands on project, along with magazines and books to further help you with your confusion. This park belonged to the Tocobaga Indian tribe.back in the 17th century.
Brooker Creek Preserve
November 4, 2016
Brooker Creek Preserve is about 8700 acres large and is located in Tarpon Springs, FL. When we visited the preserve, it was a perfect day. The weather was dry and cooler than what it had been in the last few weeks. There was not a single cloud in the sky. The first part of the trail included the swamp area. Something that was lacking in this area was the forest floor because it was filled with water. Some problems in this type of ecosystem would be drought and potential fires that would burn the canopy layer. Some functions that play a role in the wetlands would be temperature control, flood control, water filtration, and carbon storage.
The next area we looked at was the pine grasslands and the pine flatwoods. This was the area where we could see the palmetto and the pine trees at the broom and adult stage. Somethings that is important to this ecosystem if fire, so that it can have more nutrients to survive. Something I thought was interesting on this trip was that the gopher tortoise is a keystone species and can help other animals survive a fire. They are able to provide shelter for more than 360 species. The main threat to this ecosystem would be not having fires because of development in the areas. I saw many birds, but very few other animals were spotted. In the park you can find gopher tortoise, rattlesnakes, birds, frogs, worms, and wild turkey.
November 4, 2016
Brooker Creek Preserve is about 8700 acres large and is located in Tarpon Springs, FL. When we visited the preserve, it was a perfect day. The weather was dry and cooler than what it had been in the last few weeks. There was not a single cloud in the sky. The first part of the trail included the swamp area. Something that was lacking in this area was the forest floor because it was filled with water. Some problems in this type of ecosystem would be drought and potential fires that would burn the canopy layer. Some functions that play a role in the wetlands would be temperature control, flood control, water filtration, and carbon storage.
The next area we looked at was the pine grasslands and the pine flatwoods. This was the area where we could see the palmetto and the pine trees at the broom and adult stage. Somethings that is important to this ecosystem if fire, so that it can have more nutrients to survive. Something I thought was interesting on this trip was that the gopher tortoise is a keystone species and can help other animals survive a fire. They are able to provide shelter for more than 360 species. The main threat to this ecosystem would be not having fires because of development in the areas. I saw many birds, but very few other animals were spotted. In the park you can find gopher tortoise, rattlesnakes, birds, frogs, worms, and wild turkey.
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