Mason's blog post #4

Some biotic factors that our plants are affected by are the caterpillars that live on our plants along side the with the later staged white butterflies. The two stated both diminish the plants ability to get energy by eating the plants leafs. Abiotic factors that affect our plant are the amount of water they receive, the amount of sunlight received, and the temperature. If our plant is not watered on a daily basis its cells will become dehydrated, and if a plant does not receive sunlight it will not be able o get food through photosynthesis. Lastly the temperature plays a huge role in what happens to our plant. If its to cold the plant will rupture its cells, and if its to hot the plant losses precious water. 

Our plants are always competing. Water, food, and sun are the main prizes for the strongest. Currently they are competing with the plants around it for sun. We know sun is hard to get for our plants because the other plants around it are big and block much of the light that our plants need to grow. The after math of this is apparent because we can see how small our plants are compared to all of the others.

Winners and losers in competition are hard to see some of the time. The confusion lies in how is something determined a winner. It is simply a matter of who survives longer than the others, but if you think on a regional scale one group of plants may have claimed victory in one part and the other plants in another part. Who won then? The winner on a large scale is determined by all of the struggles the group has achieved together. That means if group A of plants gets overgrown by group B one time, but Group A has over grown group B 3 more times than that then group A is the over all winner.

Our plants are also involved mutualism (when two different species benefit from each others existence). This takes place when bees help to pollinate our plants and the bees get nectar from our plant. Both of the organisms need each other to exist. Other organisms do the same thing for our plants such as birds, bats, and ants.

Secondary succession is occurring in the garden. Whenever the year goes by most of the plants dye adding nutrients to the soil. Once the plants finish biodegrading the garden sits at a stand still until it rains. A few days after the rain hits weeds and left over seeds from the previous year start to sprout and take root which finishes the secondary succession cycle.