At Marsh Park location, when I walk around the residential area, I found out that the park is planted with native marshland and upland plants, native plant communities are groupings of many plant species that occur naturally in a given environment, it adapted to the site and climatic conditions in their natural habitats, many animals, birds, fish and other wildlife that are dependent upon specific plants for their survival. Upland plants like dry conditions. This section was included to provide homeowners with native plant suggestions to use in the remaining part of the landscape to allow for opportunities for a comprehensive landscape design. Such as common lantana, verbena family, cape honeysuckle, rosemary, trailing african daisy, paper- flower, and oceanblue morning glory, etc. Those are all flowering plants (phylum Magnoliophyta), which assist with water infiltration and encourage birds, mammals, and insects such as butterflies to inhabit the area. Over 100 California native trees shade the park, and custom art fencing depicts birds returning to a restored riverfront.
Refer to:
Plants For Inland Lakes. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2017, from http://www.mishorelinepartnership.org/plants-for-inland-lakes.html
LA Mountains. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2017, from http://www.lamountains.com/parks.asp?parkid=669
When we visit the Long Beach coast, there are actually not much plants grow along the shore and dock. However, I still found some Taupata and California Fan Palm (Flowering plants Phylum Magnoliophyta), these two plants are different than other plants because of its characteristic. I noticed that Long Beach is very windy and dry, because of this kind of weather, plants can't really survive in this kind of condition, only the plants such as Taupata and California Fan Palm which has strong ability to prevent water loss can grow under this kind of situation. The thousands of palm tree species thrive in a broad range of environments, including savannas, rainforests, and deserts. Palm tree does not lose much water, making palm trees more heat- and drought-resistant. Another unique adaptation of palm tree leaves is their shading ability. The California fan palm's leaves shade the trunk, so less water evaporates. Palm trees have tall trunks for getting access to air and sun above other trees. Another property of palm tree trunks is the ability to store nutrients the palm needs for periods of drought or when the palm needs to grow. In particular, palm trees store starch in their trunks to help their leaves grow. Palm trees have large root balls to stabilize them in the wind. From the root balls, lots of small, soft roots branch out. Many of these are near the surface of the ground to soak up moisture. Some of the small roots also spread out and down to collect water deeper into the ground. This characteristic helps palm trees withstand drought. Taupata plants use to conserve water is by having a thick and waxy cuticle, the thicker and waxy cuticle layer on a leaf surface can slower the transpiration rate, and more effective to prevent water loss. Therefore, they are more likely to survive in a dry and difficult environment.
Refer to:
Robbins, K. (2017, July 17). Palm Tree Adaptations | Hunker. Retrieved December 09, 2017, from https://www.hunker.com/13428612/palm-tree-adaptations
How Plants Have Adapted to Prevent Water Loss. (n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2017, from http://homeguides.sfgate.com/plants-adapted-prevent-water-loss-104586.html
When we go to the Steelhead Park, plants are not that many, all the plants we found are flowering plants which belong to the phylum Magnoliophyta. However, the interesting pattern is that if I look at the class level, the plants we have found all belong to either Monocots (Class Liliopsida) or Dicots (Class Magnoliopsida). These are the only type of class we found around the river. All dicots and monocots are flowering plants, and so are descended from flower-producing plants. However, the flowers are not always large and showy the way we expect flowers to be. Oaks, maples, and sycamore are all dicot trees, but they do not produce obvious flowers. Grasses and cattails are monocots whose flowers are often overlooked because they do not have sepals or petals. Monocots also exhibit a wide range of growth forms. Growth form, or more technically habit, refers to the overall architecture of a plant, whether it grows upright from a trunk as do trees, or creeps along the ground like a vine, or any number of other possibilities. Monocots have evolved tree-like growth forms in which the leaves attach only at the base of the plant. These include the massive agaves as well as bananas and the so-called traveller's palm. In these cases, the leaves may occur only near the base of the plant, forming a rosette, or they may wrap around the stem, lending it support, as in bananas.
Refer to:
Monocots versus Dicots. (n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2017, from http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/glossary/gloss8/monocotdicot.html
Monocots: More on Morphology. (n.d.). Retrieved December 09, 2017, from http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/monocots/monocotmm.html
At Lower Arroyo Park, we found many flowering plants (Phylum Magnoliophyta), such as western sycamore, greater plantain, yellow trumpet flower, etc. we can see that this location also has very high plant diversity, many plants grow around the river. This is an obvious sign of eutrophication. When we did the chemical test for the river, we found our that the nitrate concentration is so high in this river. there is also an excessive amount of Algal Blooms grow, known as red tides, blue-green algae which are actually bacteria (cyanobacteria). According to research that I found on the internet, there is a correlation between plant and nitrate. When plants die, nitrogen is released into the environment or into the river as ammonium. This ammonium is eventually oxidized by bacteria into nitrite and then into nitrate again, and then plants use nitrate for making amino acids, which are necessary to make proteins for more growth. The higher amount of nitrate will result in high growth rate. This is like a cycle, plants die to released more nitrate and more nitrate causes more plants to grow. However, due to the high amount of nitrate, it resulted in the increase of eutrophication for plants. In addition, excess nutrients also stimulate excessive harmful algal blooms and the creation of anoxic (oxygen-free) zones. The algal blooms have severe impacts on human health, species, and aquatic ecosystems, it can be toxic, scummy and smells bad, keeping species away from the river. It also blocks the sunlight from passing through the water. Based on these aspects, this is also as to why stream, vertebrates, and insects diversity are low at Lower Arroyo while the nitrate and plants diversity is so high. The overall conclusion is that The increased amount of nitrate will increase the eutrophication for plants, and the increase in the eutrophication for plants will also increase the amount of nitrate as well. However, the increase in the amount of nitrate will decrease the diversity of other species such as insects and vertebrates.
Refer to:
Definition of Water Quality Parameters. (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2017, from http://fosc.org/WQData/WQParameters.htm
US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic, and Atmospheric Administration. (2004, December 19). NOAA's National Ocean Service Education: Estuaries. Retrieved December 06, 2017, from https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/estuaries/media/supp_estuar09b_eutro.html
