Ch. 1 Trouble in the Forest

Group Number 1. Aspiring eucalyptus trackers. 

Tuesday morning began like any other day. The rising sun unveiled a quaint fog blanking the sleepy town of San Luis Obispo. Despite the crisp morning air, an outfit consisting of shorts and a t-shirt were donned in anticipation of the field exertion only wildlife ecology sampling could induce. Fast forward 40 minutes, and the musketeers of group number one were damp with exhaustion, scaling up and down the biased landscape of Montano de Oro. The early reconnaissance mission through Google Maps failed to provide insight on the topography of the chosen plot. The sampled area between the Bloody Nose Trail and Pecho Valley Road proved to be a uniformly laid out and evenly sectioned plot for measurement, but it all resided on a hillside which made surveying wearisome.

Top of the plot area on the Bloody Nose Trail

The plot of land was sectioned into 43 transects. Transect 11 was picked, through a mobile random number generator, to be measured first. Each measurement was decided be taken in a width of 5m of the chosen transect, for every other 10m (After transect #11) going north to transect 43.

Students in the forest

Eucalyptus trees that fell within the borderline of the transect were only documented for the south facing border. The length of each transect from the Bloody Nose Trail to Pecho Valley Road was around 143m, giving the observed area of land for each transect around 715m^2.






Many questionable measuring tactics arose throughout the day, most noticeably the consistency of the transect area. The starting point for each transect was carefully measured out at the top of the valley on the Bloody Nose Trail, and was supposed to be followed down in a straight line to Pecho Valley Road. However, the varying topography and tree obstacles caused our transect counters to shift the plot's boarders as we moved through the forest.

Expert team of eucalyptus counter in action,
note: distance between two counters may not actually be 5m. 

This slight migration occurred during each trip up and down the mountain, despite our best efforts in realigning our travel path mid mountain. Also, the 5m transect area of measurement could not be sustained by a physical tape through the count, as it would get snagged on any of the numerous growth. Our group ended up deciding to estimate the distance of 5m between two people and keep that estimated distance down/up the hill as we counted. Of course, that distance was not always maintained the whole time, and it was difficult to keep track if one side was too far from the other or vice versa.

Trails in the forest.

Despite the possible inconsistency in counting and transect sampling, the first two transects sampled both contained 49 trees. The following transects measuring yielded a similar amount of trees, around 50. Although, this "phenomenon" could simply be attributed to the row-like plot pattern the eucalyptus trees were planted in, various variables suggest otherwise. First off, the rows in which the trees are planted in were not parallel with the transects that were in place, so the count did not simply neatly follow each row.  Moreover, only live trees were recorded in each plot, seeming to only produce more discrepancy among the tally. Through all this however, a consistent population of trees was observed for each transect of land, possibly suggesting a stable density of growth.

A spot count was later experimented with to compare with the transect method. The spot count location was haphazardly chosen to be centered around a large eucalyptus tree (pictured below). (We decided that total randomness wouldn't be too crucial in this particular spot count, because we were simply looking for any drastic change in tree count from the transect method).

Nick standing next to the majestic eucalyptus tree, used as the center for our spot count.

The spot count was measured in a circle fashion, with every tree in a 15m radius being documented. With a radius of 15m, the total area of the count was around 706.5m^2 (not too far below the transect area). For this area, a total of 49 trees were observed, which is very similar to the quantities seen through the transect method. The biggest strength the spot count provided our group was not in its effortless approach in measurement, but that each tree could be distinctly be accounted for in the chosen area by walking the transect tape around in a circle of a concrete center, versus the transect walking method that included inevitable changes in area and direction was we walked down the hill.

Due to these reasons, a spot count will probably be utilized for future eucalyptus quantification. Before this can happen though a new grid must be created to encapsulate the region in a way that works with circular spot counts. Also a GPS unit will tremendously help with the accuracy of counting regions.

Until next time.....
-Jeff (aspiring eucalyptus counter)