May 29, 2022. Sunday, 16 °C.
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
I discovered two area with different altitudes by 1m × 1m quadrats, and I separated the quadrats to ten 10cm (about 3.94 in) × 10cm (about 3.94 in) squares. It is relatively easy for me to sampled at low altitude in Blue Mountain Hill, and the diversity of plants that I looked for were many and apparent. I dropped the quadrats on a low altitude area for several times, and there were 5 species in the quadrats. They included Nodding Trillium (Feather Moss) Hypnum imponens, Rhododendron, Adiantum pedatum (Ferns), Humulus Japonicus (grass).
Figure 1 The grass at low altitude area in Blue Mountain Hill located in Halifax, NS (Nova Scotia), Canada. Photo taken by Ziyi Yu on May 29, 2022.
For the high-altitude area in Blue Mountain Hill, there were less water, air, and warm temperature. The diversity of the plants was less than the low-altitude area and there were some wastelands. It was a little hard for me to find the species by my 1m × 1m quadrats. The number of the plant species I found were less, and sometimes I could not see the species I found in the low altitude. However, the difference between low and high altitude indicates that the diversity may be affected by the altitude in Blue Mountain Hill.
Adiantum pedatum (ferns) in low altitude area are more than in high altitude area, and Humbulus Japonicus (grass) were less in low altitude place. The number of Humbulus Japonicus in high altitude area increased as Adiantum pedatum decreased. I made a hypothesis that there are the compete between Adiantum pedatum and Humbulus Japonicus since the resources differed in different altitudes. Adiantum pedatum won in the low altitude area, and Humbulus Japonicus adapted high altitude area more.