Ecological Survey of Ballinger Lake Park

The area I surveyed was a marsh area of Ballinger Lake Park not to far from the parking lot. The marsh area had plenty of tall grasses and lots of purple-stemmed aster (Symphyotricum puniceum). There were also pockets of blackberry bushes (Rubus discolor). There was a spiky fern that I was unable to identify along my transect that I had no choice but to walk around and estimate my next placement. On my way to the site, I disturbed a flock of birds that were in the area. Unfortunately they did not return so I was unable to identify them. The tall grasses and plants were very thick and the ground spongy from the earlier rains.

I was running out of daylight, so did not walk the entire park but did complete the transect from my entry point into the marsh to a reasonably safe distance to water line. I built my quadrat out of pvc pipe, cut in to 2.5 ft segments and angle connectors. The PVC pipe is sold in 10 ft lengths, so 2.5 ft is the most you can make with one pipe. The cost of pipe and connectors was a little over $4. Lowes will even cut the pipe to length for you at no cost. I chose 7 steps between my quadrat placement, and only twice had to go around an area that was too thick to walk through. I strongly recommend anyone following my transect to wear long pants, and boots. Also be on the look out for where dog owners have not been responsible.

I selected the purple-stemmed aster (Symphyotricum puniceum) for my sampling, and counted the stems of each plant that went into the ground. It is entirely possible that some of these stems were part of the same plant, but I did not want to disturb the ecosystem by removing them to make sure.

Here is the list which summarizes my findings:

1. 5 stems
2. 0 stems
3. 0 stems
4. 5 stems
5. 9 stems
6. 4 stems
7. 0 stems
8. 0 stems
9. 0 stems
10. 6 stems
11. 12 stems

The overall distribution was fairly random, and there were several pockets where there was none, the average over my transect was 3.4 stems, which felt lower than when I looked across the marsh.
Many times I would walk over a good sample count to lay down my quadrat in a section of grass. I chose a slight angle towards the building from the entry point to avoid some very heavily dense areas which had I counted would have likely increased my count significantly, but would have been much more of a challenge to traverse.

The terrain was somewhat uneven, and was a challenge to traverse without damaging plants. Because of this, I used a natural trail when I had the option, but would go back in line with my starting point. I did notice that the number of plants did greatly increase in areas which seemed to be a bit lower than others, with a greater amount as I got closer to the water. I feel this is likely due to the fact that the lower areas would collect more water which would help the plants grow. The populations were not always connected, as there were occasional grass trails that ran between them creating isolated pockets here and there. Since the distance between the populations is not very large, I would still consider them able to be connected.

I felt this exercise was very interesting, and if I needed to do this again, I would likely wear rubber boots and wear gardening gloves as black berry bushes can be pain to work around. I think a survey such as this could work well for getting an idea of a specific species, but such a small cross section really only gives you a rough estimate, and it is entirely possible to not get a complete picture if you also discount any large populations in the skip between measurements. Moving the quadrat in a continuous line would likely give a better example of the area being analyzed.

Panorama of area. Survey started in opening near center