Q. Give a brief physical description of the study area. Include its approximate size and location, and a general picture of its topography, vegetation, and designation, if any.
The site I will be studying is my garden in Tokyo, Japan. The latitude is 35.6496384 degrees, and longitude 139.668226. The approximate size of the area is 240 meters squared (100m perimeter), and it is a flat topography with barely any difference in altitude. The vegetation is equivalent to city streets having ornamental trees and shrubs.
Q. Note when and at what time you visited the site and give an indication of weather and seasonality.
My observation of the garden was made on May 21st, 2023 16:00. Sunny, slightly humid, and little wind. It was 24 degrees celsius, 68% humidity, and wind of 4 m/s. We are approaching a very hot summer this year, and it has already started getting hot lately although it is still May.
Q. Think about potential subjects that you might want to study for your research project. Based on your observations, list three questions that are interesting or striking and could form the subject of your research project.
The garden is divided into 4 main areas, where some areas are surrounded by buildings creating varying levels of sunlight. The garden consists of various trees – cherry blossom, crape myrtle, plum tree, peach blossom, sakaki, wisteria tree, Japanese maple, Japanese magnolia, and pine tree. However, since there are only one of each kind, it may not be enough to conduct a study. The garden also consists of various flowers – roses, petunia, agapanthus, cineraria, bacopa, margaret, blue daisies, dianthus, christmas rose, godetia, moss phlox, azalea, satsuki azalea. Most of these flowers are mainly growing in the sunny area (area 1) of the garden, however, I realized that azaleas are dispersed across different areas (area 1-4) of the garden and are blooming differently. In addition to plants, I know that various birds visit our garden quite regularly. These birds include – oriental turtle doves, crows, starlings, sparrows, wagtails (Stigmatura budytoides), Japanese great tit (Parus minor), Japanese white eye (Pycnonotus capensis), bulbuls (Hypsipetes amaurotis), and non-native species of parakeet (Psittacula krameri) that have been colonizing the area lately. There are birds that only visit when there are treats, and birds that visit regardless of the presence of bird food. When there is food supply, the whole range of birds visit the garden and at different times of the day, as if they are timing their arrival. Sometimes, when two different species visit, one species takes over the territory, forcing the other species to fly away.
1. Do birds have affinities to different trees and why?
2. What is the effect of feeding birds on the biodiversity of birds? How do they share the same food source/territory?
3. How do the four areas of the garden differ environmentally (abiotic factors) and how do they affect the growth of plants (biotic factors)?
Q. Support the descriptions above with images from your field journal (if you’re using paper and pen, scan your pages; if you’re using digital technology, save your files and submit those).
You have a good first post and some good initial thoughts. One important point is that you can not feed birds as part of this study as any animal manipulation requires animal care approval which we do not have for this course.
I am not clear how areas 2 and 3 can be part of a study on birds or plants as they seem to be a driveway and a path respectively.
Hello Professor Preudink,
Thank you for your reply! Thank you for your comment regarding the birdfeeding I will exclude that from my research. I also apologize about the photos – areas 2 and 3 have areas of soil and plants, the way I took the photo does not make that clear. Sorry about that.