Blog Post #4

Some abiotic factors that our plant depends on are water, fertile soil, sunlight, and space. Some biotic factors that affect our plant are if insects and animals pray on them and other plants that are in competiton with them. When plants are in competition it means they are fighting for resourses such as water, that could effect the plants because one could loose their water and the other could thrive. We know that our plants are in competition when there are other plants growing around them, like the grass growing around our plants in the garden, for water, sunlight, and minerals in the soil. "winners" and "losers" are determined by which plants are growing the best and which ones arent. It is not always clear to see which plant win and which plant loses in copetition. It is hard to see because every "fight" is different. For example, they plants could be getting close to the same amount of resourses. Our plants are both involved with predication and parastitism. In our plant's case, they are both when a preditor ets them. The difference between them is that predication is when insects and animals eat them and other organisms to stay alive and usually involves keeping the population in control. Parasitism is when a preditor only eats that plant. In these interactions, only the insect or animal benefits because the plant doesnt benefit from another organism eating it. The evidence that there is succession in the garden is that there are plant beds with soil already in them meaning the ecosystem in the garden doesn’t have to create soil like in primary succession. The gardens ecosystem has mainly secondary succession.