Introduction: Problem: Are the forests recovering from human damage and disturbance to the enviornment? Secondary succession is the recovery of land to its climax state, a steady, non-changing state of a community. Secondary succession can be influenced by factors like agriculture, soil type, climate and invasive species. Factors which humans commonly influence through actions like pasturing, tillage, air pollution and hunting. In this lab, we analyzed different Whiterspoon forest stands - each disturbed by humans to different extents. By comparing how the stands differed from or were on their way into succeeding into a climax state, we sought to discover if human influence on the land created irreparable changes that prevent once cleared lands …show more content…
The approximate sunlight and ground cover precentage, the number of adults, saplings and seedlings for Red Maple, Tuliptree, Beech and Black Locust were noted. The lab sheet was used as reference for these observations. Conclusions: The hypothesis was supported by the data collected. All the stands that were released from human disturbance after 1840 had a different community from the 1840 stand which is a representation of the pre-settelement or climax state. The 1840 Forest Stand had mostly beech trees. The approximate sunlight was the lowest at 15% in the 1840 stand which was caused by the beeches blocking out the sun. This also correlated with the lowest ground cover of 5% which can be explained by the low sunlight. The beeches outcompeted other species for sunlight with their height, as a result, eliminating grass. The beeches also outcompeted the red maple sappling which were prominent in the stand, however, didn’t grow up into adults because of the deficiency in sunlight. The other stands depending on the type of human disturbance developed into different communities. The 1963 stand for example, was a plow field, as was evidenced by the even land, absence of