Wet Beaver Creek Lab Report

Our experiment was conducted in late January at Wet Beaver Creek. Wet Beaver Creek is located south of flagstaff in the Coconino National Forest. Wet beaver creek has an elevation if 1158 meters, with an average annual precipitation of 16.71 inches, and an average temperature range of 80.8 in July and 43.1 in December. Wet beaver creek features both Perennial and non-Perennial rivers, and is home to many species of trees including sycamore, Juniper, Cottonwood, Alder, Ash, and many more.
To test the hypothesis that mistletoe abundance effects tree health and diameter, we quantified the number of trees that did and did not possessed the Big Leaf Mistletoe along a 50m plot from the perennial river edge. We did this by evaluating each tree we saw by eye, looking for signs of mistletoe on the tree. We them recorded the diameter of the trees and a quantified scale of health for the trees between one and three; three being good health and one being low health. We also recorded the number of different growths of Big Leaf Mistletoe on the trees that possessed mistletoe. We did this for the first 50 trees we came into contact with, within our 50 m perimeter from the river.

We evaluated the same number of trees as at the perennial however set our 50m perimeter from the middle of the river, rather than at the edge as we did at the perennial site. This is due to the number of trees rooted in the middle of the dried river as well as there being no clear distinction of where the edge of the river would