Ashwaq Abdi, Amy Itamura, Viviana Tovar, and Luis Alonso

Due October 5th, 2017

Biology/7/8

The Effect of Hills on Plant Life Abundance and Growth

Question:

How does the presence or absence of a slope effect plant life abundance and growth?

Background:

Alta is a popular ski resort located in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. While it is famous for its

skiing, it is also an area scientists use for sampling sites. Alta is home to many different types of

plants and animals. Some of these organisms include moose, badgers, and more (Discover Alta,

2015). Plants are very helpful for hills because they strengthen the soil with the deepening of

roots (Tally, 2017). Alta has made a habit of finding out all of the plant species on the mountains

and replanting them to keep mountains and hills fertile as well as to minimize erosion and

increase plant diversity. Our project will focus on % of plant life and slope (whether or not it has

a hill). Plant diversity is important to an ecosystem because it creates variety of crops which in

turn attract other animals keeping them healthy. A healthy ecosystem then recovers faster from

disasters (Shah, 2014). This study is important because in knowing how slope affects plant and

plant life, we could help us keeps hills and mountains fertile and potentially even help to prevent

landslides.

Hypothesis:

We hypothesized that plants in an area with a hill will have a lower height and abundance

because of the angle the plants are at (they could be killed by landslides and rough weather
conditions. They may also have trouble planting their roots) as well as being able to get

sufficient amounts of water.

Procedure:

Use GPS and map to arrive at location 6, grid 5

1) We were assigned an area that was 50 x 50 that we measured and marked with a

measuring tape and making a square.

2) Estimate ground cover percentage by surveying the area and analyzing how much bare

ground, grassy areas, litter, water, etc. are present through observation.

3) Analyze the plot of land and estimate percentage of plant coverage. Look at your area and

estimate the percentage of trees and the percentage of bare ground and subtracting your

number from 100%.

4) Identify plant types and habitat using graphics and written descriptions. Picking a habitat

by looking at only the 50X50 plot and comparing it to the examples/pictures and written

descriptions.

5) Measure average plant height (cm) (find a tree that best represents all of the trees heights

in the area) both dead and alive using ruler and measuring tape to see if the tree has

grown accordingly to its average tree height.

6) Identify if your location has a hill and analyze accordingly to whether there is a presence

of plants, woody areas, dead and down, live and dead grass.

Data Analysis:
Results:

Our data shows that the presence of hills does not have a significant difference on the abundance

of plant life. We took the average of the abundance on all of the different plants present, (grass,

woody, and herbaceous) then compared them to see whether the sites with hills or without hills

had a higher percentage. We took the average of the plant abundance for each type of plant and

took the average of the sites with hills, and sites with no hills (see figure 1). From this we found

that the difference between the averages of sites with hills and no hills was only about 1, which

was not enough of a difference to say definitively that hills have an effect on plant abundance.

Discussion:

We found that there was no significant difference, by taking the average of each sites

percentage of plant coverage. This insinuates that our hypothesis was incorrect. We hypothesized
that plants in an area with a hill will have a lower height and abundance because of the angle the

plants are at, which creates problems planting their roots and getting sufficient amounts of water.

However, we may have encountered some errors. We did not actually differentiate slope in a

matter of degrees, but by the fact if it was a hill. We didnt know how steep the hill was, or if it

should even be considered a hill. This could seriously sway our data. We may have also

estimated the percentages wrong, and since each site was done by different people its pretty

unlikely that the way everyone estimated was the same.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, we found that hills have no effect on plant abundance. To get better data in the

future, we would actually like to measure the slope instead of simply marking an area as a hill or

not, and maybe come up with a way to more accurate way of measuring plant coverage. If we did

this another time, we would also like to look at plant abundance and measure how many different

plants live on each site depending on whether there is a hill or not. Going to more sites and

possibly measuring how healthy the plants on the slopes are compared to flat land plants by

using quantitative observations. Observing the times of plants there are, researching about their

habitats and what other plants they are usually surrounded by and see if where they are placed is

a suitable environment for them and checking the soil to see if it is firm help sil or if it seems

worn down. Also checking weather patterns to see if weather has had an affect on the health,

growth and abundance of the plants in the area.

Our data resulted in plants not being affected by slope thus making our hypothesis incorrect but

our data was not taken in such a way that could thoroughly represent what we were trying to

answer and would use other methods more thorough and thought out if we had the opportunity.
Bibliography:

Discover Alta. "Wildlife in Alta - Summer in Alta : Discover Alta." Discover Alta, 18

June 2015, www.discoveralta.com/wildlife-in-alta/. Accessed 9 Oct. 2017.

 Tally, Catherine. "Best Plants and Erosion Controls for Slopes and Hillsides."

Dengarden, 27 Aug. 2017, dengarden.com/landscaping/Good-Plants-and-Erosion-

Controls-for-Slopes. Accessed 9 Oct. 2017.

Maron, J. L., & Crone, E. (2006, October 22). Herbivory: effects on plant abundance,

distribution and population growth. Retrieved October 09, 2017, from

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1635468/

Buddies, S. (n.d.). Can Plants Help Slow Soil Erosion? Retrieved October 09, 2017, from

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-plants-help-slow-soil-erosion/

Why Is Biodiversity Important? Who Cares? (n.d.). Retrieved October 09, 2017, from

http://www.globalissues.org/article/170/why-is-biodiversity-important-who-cares

Figure 1: