I have chosen to observe Finnerty Gardens located in Victoria, BC. The garden is around 2.7 hectares and is located on the edge of the University of Victoria campus. I visited the garden on May 19, 2024 around 3:30 PM. The weather was typical for late spring in Victoria, it was around 17 degrees celsius and sunny. There was a very slight breeze (10 Km/h). The topography is fairly flat, with many paths and small grass areas, and two small ponds. There are various kinds of thick vegetation, including coniferous trees and shrubs, bamboo, ferns, arbutus plants and many more. From previous visits to the garden, I have seen both squirrels and rabbits, however this time I didn’t see any. The garden was fairly busy today, including bikers and dogs. UVic has a map of Finnerty garden, including the types of vegetation present, which is something that might be useful for my field journal.
A few questions I have are:
- How does increased foot traffic/human activity affect the vegetation and wildlife in the gardens?
- How do different plant species interact with each other (competition, facilitation etc.)?
- How does the presence of non-native plant species (if any) affect the native plant species and wildlife?
Hi, welcome to the field study of the course. Your study site sounds like it will work well. As you work through the next few modules you will start to think about what you can measure and what sorts of questions you could answer during this course. Remember it is hard to measure cause and effect and to look for what your gradient is.