Student Blog Post Assignment #4

There are many different factors that our brassica depends on for it's survival in the garden. Some abiotic factors include air, water, space, temperature, light, and soil. For example, plants need carbon dioxide from the air, water from the soil, and energy from the sunlight to make their own food. This is called photosynthesis, which needs abiotic factors in order to work and function correctly. Some biotic factors that affected our plants growth include, insects, arachnids, fungi, bacteria, virus, and any mammals that eat plants. All of those biotic factors affect our brussels sprouts by mutualism, parasitism, herbivory and other different interactions that they have.

Our group knew that the plant was being engaged in competition because all the surrounding brassicas had a similar niche. So, our plant would be competing with the other brassica for water and sunlight. With the right amount of energy, our plant could thrive while the other ones surrounding it would die. This means that in our classes garden area, the brassicas will have to compete like any other biotic organism in the environment. As you can see, plants are no different than us in the way that we need to work for better resources and luxuries.

Being a "winner" in the environment means to better your opponent in any way, shape or form as long as you stay in your boundaries. That is what it means to be a winner in a community or population. Even though, it is very difficult sometimes to recognize if your plants are being "winners" or "losers". So, the complicated part is the fact of noticing if our brassica is bettering it's surrounding plant breed.

Some other examples of our brassica interacting with the environment and the organisms in it would be the different types of symbiosis. Firstly, an example of mutualism would be when both the brassica   
and the other organism benefit. Like if a bee is coming to our plant and pollenating it, benefiting itself 
and the brassica because both get to grow and progress in nature. Another example could be parasitism because bacteria could feed of our brussels sprouts, damaging its roots and making the leaves die.

With all of the evidence given by our brassicas and its surroundings, I can defiantly agree that our garden is going through secondary succession. Like any young garden, we started with flowerbeds full of soil, and eventually progressed to small fungi and flowers. Now the garden has progressed to chickens and lots of healthy plants that are producing food. As you can see, starting a garden does not take the effort of a hundred human beings, but the effort to give it time to fully grow and nourish.



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