Biodiversity Challenge: Nature where we live
If you stepped onto a trail in the Eno River State Park in Durham, NC, what would you see? Why, just what you would see in any other forest in the Eastern U.S.: trees, bushes, some bugs, a clump of mushrooms, a couple of birds. Maybe a snake will even cross your path. How about in a city park in downtown Durham? More dogs, a couple of tennis balls, maybe fewer birds. And even though there are still trees and bushes, these might be different ones. It might not be obvious at first glance, but there are differences between these places, despite how close they are to one another, that cause different types of plants and animals to live there. For example, that park downtown is a little bit warmer than that path next to the Eno. And while it might be noticeable to us, that small difference in temperature could make or break it for a certain plant or animal.
As a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, my job is to find out where in the Research Triangle area of NC (around the cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) you can find different species of plants, and why. I want to know why there is a Southern Magnolia in my backyard but not one growing deep in the forest. And not just Magnolias, but all the different kinds of trees (and there are many) we have in the Triangle. Rather than study each species individually, though, I look at them all together: I go to a spot in one of the parks, identify the species of plants there, and take some measurements of things like temperature, how much water is available for the plants to use, and how large the forest is. (Maybe you’ve seen me—I carry a big backpack.) Then I try to find patterns, like “Are there more different kinds of plants in warm places?” and “Are species in urban areas the ones we like to plant in our yards?”
Why might this matter? Well, believe it or not, for a place where a lot of people live and work, we don’t know very much about which species live in urban areas. Knowing this could be pretty important, because plants (and other sorts of organisms) do a lot for us, like remove pollutants from air and water and provide food and habitat for birds and other animals. Different plants do things a bit differently, and having a lot of different kinds might act as insurance for when one of them dies, or for when the environment changes. Knowing how many and which kinds of plants live in urban areas can help us figure out whether the places we live will continue to do the things we care about as urban development continues. So next time you’re walking in a city park, take a good look around—there might be more to see than you would think.