hypothesis: Balsam Poplar trees exhibit faster growth rates and demonstrate increased resilience in response to fluctuating environmental conditions.
In my research I picked 12 random locations on the Elk River on google earth haphazardly, 6 on the flood plain and 6 just slightly inward from the river to a forested area. I went to each position and measured a 15m by 15m quadrant and counted each species inside it. I also took note and measured the poplar trees width to recognize how old the average poplar tree is.
Problems I encountered were weather, its winter with a lot of snow and walking knee deep in the snow to get too certain locations presented a challenge. With all of the leaves fallen off, I had to decipher which was a poplar tree. in the deep snow I had to decipher how many young trees there were as well.
It is clear in my research that the balsam poplar trees grow extensively in the flood plain, an area with great disturbances every year. With the highest amount of the young species located in the flood plain and the more older species are located further into the elevated forested area. This proves to me that they can have increased resilience compared to other species.
I did first write in my hypothesis that balsam poplar trees are a first succession tree, and that they support growth of other species of trees. While that could be true, it would be not an easy task to prove in such a short time period as well as in the winter.
For your hypothesis at the beginning I’m not sure how you will measure growth rate or resilience. Growth rate is a change over time. You can measure size and then in the discussion you can infer that they may grow faster in areas they are bigger. Also, this hypothesis seems different to what you say at the end about supporting growth of other tree species. You also might not be able to test this directly but you can test for abundance and diversity of other trees close to poplars and then you can infer as to why this might be in the discussion.