C.

Bird/Small Mammal/Biodiversity
1. On our plot, since were in a high school, there isnt a lot of diversity, but the types of mammals
and small birds on our plot is very consistent with what we see. The only ones that we really
saw/heard were small squirrels and crows. The importance of the biodiversity between the
insects, birds, and small mammals is important in maintaining the environment within the our
school. Birds are important because they keep systems in balance: they pollinate plants,
disperse seeds, scavenge carcasses and recycle nutrients back into the earth. Squirrels plants
nuts for when they hibernate, but the few nuts that they leave end up growing into trees or other
plants. In the aspect of sustainability, they just maintain keeping the ecosystem the same, so
that it doesnt change drastically. For our plot, there was one invasive species which was the
red-tail hawk. Our landscape will benefit the small mammals and birds will provide more food for
them and give them a habitat to live in.

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Lab Report
I think that the diversity that we have on our plot of land is just the right amount. In any
ecosystem, you cant have too much of one species or else theyll just completely dominate the
land, leaving nothing for the other animals to live off of. The sampling techniques were simply
bird/mammal watching over a course of at least 2 times per week, for 5 minutes. This gave us a
general idea of the types of small mammals and birds within our plot.
Procedure
Find one spot on the plot of land and set a timer for 5 minutes
Record the date, site start time, sky condition, wind code, and temperature (Key for sky
condition and wind code is found on the worksheet)
Record bird/small mammal sightings, time of when it was found, noise code, and the amount of
that species (Key for noise code is found on the worksheet)
At the end of recording, again record the date, site end time, sky condition, wind code, and
temperature

10/19

10/21

Noise Code

Species

Tally

Time

Crow

9:11

Crow

9:12

Hawk

9:12

Crow

9:13

Crow

9:14

Noise Code

Species

Tally

Time

Squirrel

9:14

Crow

9:15

10/25

10/28

Crow

9:15

Crow

9:16

Noise Code

Species

Tally

Time

Squirrel

9:23

Crow

9:25

Crow

9:26

Crow

9:27

Crow

9:28

Noise Code

Species

Tally

Time

Crow

9:14

Crow

9:16

Crow

9:17