Rainforest Observation Essay

Introduction
In Dunedin there are many different plants and trees scattered across different areas. This can be a forest, flower fields, grasslands, or a mix up. How did they get there and how long will they survive there? The aim of todays study is to look at the mix of habitats down by the Water of Leith, and see if the riverside environment resembles the theory about plant strategies and vegetation. The theory roughly states that if conditions allow it, trees will dominate a plant community, and that in more disturbed areas, smaller, fast growing plants with high seed mobility will prosper.

Results
By looking at the life forms in each habitat, one can see that they are quite distinct from each other; the bank is dominated by trees, the
The theory states that trees usually grow in places where the disturbance is low and the availability for resources and light are high. As seen in Table 1, this is exactly how the situation was; well lit, high resource richness and low disturbance. It explains why there are no trees down by riverside, because the trees would not favor that habitat due to high disturbance caused by floods.
The riverside was rich in herbaceous plants. These kind of plants are short lived and grow faster than trees. Floods are not a frequent disturbance, but frequent enough to rip up trees that are still not fully grown. The small plants however, can easily grow and spread in the time between one flood and the next. The cliff/wall had some of the same vegetation as the riverside. This shows that the mobility of the seeds from the flowers and plants found in the wall is high, as they were able to cross a river and settle in some very small cracks.
Based on the observations showed in Table 1, the riverbank is no exception to the theory. Trees will dominate where they can, and herbaceous plants can survive in areas with higher disturbance as well as spread their seeds farther than the larger woody