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What Animals Live in the Grass Plots vs. the Grass and Fertilizer Plots in the Prairie?
What Animals Live in the Grass Plots vs. the Grass and Fertilizer Plots in the Prairie?
Background
Background
Although we didn't find a lot of animals we found an array of insects throughout the prairie.
In the majority of plots we found lots of butterflies, crickets, and a few traces of larger animals.
Our experiment was attempting to find out if animals were drawn to different plots and the reasons for that.
As the researcher I learned the habitats of many of the insects that we saw.
Such as the field cricket, they are most common in the fall since it gets colder and days shorten.
On the second day we heard rustling in the forest, we tried to see what it was but were unsure.
I saw many yellow butterflies and with the research that i've done i believe it is an orange sulpher butterfly. Preferred food is alfalfa. I'm not quite sure if that is in our prairie so they could just be visitors!
Methods
Methods
The methods we used to get our information included but were not limited to: combing through the plots looking for evidence of animals, checking through the plants, looking for insects, and setting out motion activated cameras.
On the first day, we went through plots 6 and 8. We made our way through the center of the plots looking around and counting all the animals and insects we saw. We then sat up the motion camera in plot 8 and left the prairie.
On the second day, Cameron and Ida went out to the prairie and repeated this process through plots 1 and 17 then left the camera in plot 17.
On the third day of work, we sadly could not find the camera so we don’t have the data from it but we do have the data that we gathered by ourselves.
Data
Data
The data shows the animals we saw in the fields. the dark green is the amount and type of animals we found in the grass plots and the light green is the amount of animals and type of animals we found in the grass and forbes plot.
Conclusion
Conclusion
On the two days that we worked, we tried to find every animal that lived in the area. We found many bugs but hardly any large animals, but we did find evidence of these larger animals. We also did not expect to find too many larger animals because most big animals know how to run and hide. However, we did find many bugs, from snails to butterflies, living in the grasses. But it was not as successful as we intended, most likely due to the dry field and the timidness of animals bigger than bugs. We did not think of this problem before we started the project, but our data still proves that there are more organisms in the Forbs and Grass plots than in the Grass plots.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Visual Resources- My phone camera, Ida's Phone Camera
Researcher Resources- Bird watching HQ ( https://birdwatchinghq.com/butterflies-in-kansas/ ) Field cricket (https://gpnc.org/fauna/insects/field-cricket/ )
Documentar Resources- Prairie Plots, Google Maps
Who Are We?
Who Are We?
Joy Malin- The Visual Director
Ida Allen- The Research Lead
Cameron Salb- The Documenter
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