Upon a walk through the woods, whilst identifying trees my group and I came across a lovely doe and her fawn. This doe was surprisingly comfortable with all four of us in close proximity to her, but living in a place such as Presque Isle I suppose she has become sensitized to human presence
I got within ten feet of this beautiful creature. Her fawn stayed further back.
A deer provides an excellent example of inter-specific competition. This deer, is more commonly seen than its competitor the moose. The moose and deer both share this habitat and require similar resources. Shelter, food, and water. Water is not scarce anywhere on this island as it is surrounded by the beautiful lake superior, this resource maybe also become a challenge when the lake gets frozen over. Plant life, on the other hand can also get scarce during the winter months. even though the forest is filled with life, and packed with trees, the resources still are fought over, thus the competition.
(I wish this photo was mine, I've never seen a moose in real life, not even from a distance) photocredit wiki commons
Another thing that the deer can provide us with is an example of parasitism. The deer itself is obviously not a parasite as a deer is an herbivore. No, its not the deer, but its passengers, ticks and fleas. These little buggers, that we try so hard to prevent on us and on our canine friends, can be found all over a hunters favorite animal. Ive even heard stories of massive swarms of these little blood suckers, adding mosquitoes into the bunch, taking down a full size moose. Of course, in this cold northern climate, the winter is a sort of break away from these nasty things, as they cannot survive in the cold.
To continue the journey around presque isle we now look for commensalism. Commensalism is a difficult thing to find, as generally when two items interact both are impacted, but in commensalism, one item benefits and the other is neither harmed nor benefited. I found an example of commensalsim within an old tree stump. A chipmunk or some other small animal had made their home there. The stump was not being harmed or helped, but the chipmunk had a great place to make a shelter.
notice the small hole at the base.
The next item that would be commonly found in presque isle is mutualism. Both organisms involved benefit. The relationship I choose I did not see this fall, but saw plenty this summer. Bees play an essential role in polonating all the flowers that grow in this beautiful park. th bee benfits for their hive, and the flowers get to reproduce. They both benefit from their interactions. Close by on the bog walk, that our class went on earlier this semester I saw plenty of this interaction. There are whole fields full of beautiful flowers thanks to this mutual interaction
Next on our tour, lets look at intraspecific competition. For this I turn to the trees. Presque isle is full of trees. They pop up everywhere, they grow tall, they fall down, they grow new leaves, they loose the old and their seeds fall as well. Trees compete with one another for resources. Although there is also interspecific competition between various tree species, I still claim intraspecific competition due to the trees all needing the same thing. Like all the baby maples trying to reach above the canopy for the sun. All the oak trees do the same thing. Even from being a seed, like when an acorn is dropped, its a race to see which one will become dinner, and which will become a new tree, though a seed cannot consciously direct where it goes. The trees have to reach their roots down deep for water, and nutrients in the soil, Trees here are practically growing on top of each other. in constant cycle
Now that we've seen the trees lets take a closer look. On a great deal of these trees is a micro habitat; lichens.
This micro habitat found its way up and keeps getting bigger as you can see from the first picture it can be very isolated, or it can be huge, such as the second picture. It is a specific habitat within a larger one. although there are multiple patches of this type of habitat all over the forest, it is still isolated to the tree. It is different from the surrounding area because it is living off of something bigger. it can be easily looked over, but it is everywhere.
Finally lets talk about niches. With so much wildlife, it is hard to choose one niche. so well go with one of my favorite animals, the squirrel. You see these cute little guys scurrying all over the place. This time of year they are stockpiling their resources for the winter. They live in the trees, they eat the nuts that fall down from their branches, they interact with the chipmunks competing for the same resources, and they are so darn cute.
Life on preqsue isle would not be possible without th biogeochemical cycles that take palce there. The water cycle happens with evaporation from the lake, and precipitation to get it back down distributed and used for growth. The carbon cycle also happens for providing nutrients to all the vegetation on the isle. Photosynthesis and repsiration occur everywhere with the massive amounts of plant life. Another cycle is the nitrogen cycle, also important to plant life. These cycle are present everywhere and are necessary for the continuing of life. without the cycles nothing could live very long.
Presque isle is a beautiful place, full of diverse forms of life. Every time you go there its different. take the chance to get there and see something special.
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