Assignment 2

Seasonal soil mosture dynamics in a forest and grassland ecosystem

This assignment is due February 16 in lecture and worth 5% of the course grade. The late penalty is 10% per day of the total potential assignment grade, including weekend days. Assignments will not be accepted after 9am on Monday February 21, resulting in a mark of zero. There is a drop box outside the Geography TA office where late assignments must be turned in.


Introduction:

To complete this assignment you must download, analyze, and interpret real soil moisture data logged in two ecosystems on the UTM campus from the past fall and early winter, a deciduous forest and a grassland In answering the discussion questions, be sure to think about the specific ecosystem physical and biological attributes that can influence how moisture enters and leaves soil and how these attributes might change over the course of early October to late December.


Specific instructions:

Data access and graphing:

As well as this sheet, refer to the material presented in lecture on February 7 and an overview of the ecosystems and UTM environmental data collection initiative . You must use Microsoft Excel or an equivalent spreadsheet software package to make the figure for this assignment.

Download or open the appropriate data needed below as Microsoft Excel Files. It will be easiest to cut and paste needed data into one worksheet that has both of the sites and all months on the same sheet. Data are accessible from the UTM Geography main page (http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/geography) under the menubar “Resources” and then “Environmental Datasets”. Note that ‘pond’ refers to the marsh adjacent to the pond, and ‘field’ refers to the grassland.

In a single figure, create a line graph or scatterplot of the soil moisture content in the grassland and forest for the months of October, November, and December based on the hourly average volumetric soil moisture values (expressed as a fraction of 1). In other words, the x-axis of the figure should begin on October 1 and end on December 31 and have data 2 series, one for each ecosystem.

The graph must be labeled with clear, legible, and appropriate figure title, axis titles, axis labels, and legend (adjust scale, symbol shape and color, and font sizes appropriately).

Answer the following short questions within the space (or an equivalent-sized space) provided.

Interpretation:

1) What causes the periodic ‘spikes’ in soil moisture on your figure?

2) Over the month of October, does one ecosystem have clearly higher soil moisture content than the other? If so, which one, and why?

3) Over the month of December does the same patter persist as in October/question 2 above? If not, why?