Khales+Journal



I noticed a lot of plant life on rocky hill. although the majority of the plants were either very dry or dead and a brownish-gray color. the variety of plants were from the cactisus that grows all around Punahou School campus to the luscious green Hibiscus plant. There weren't too many sings of animal life, but there are occasional birds that stop by the area for a quick rest and snack at the top of a tree that has grape-berry looking fruits where possible insects could be gathering food. This area will be good to study because there aren't a lot of predator prey signs being shown other then insects and plants, and birds and insects. because of this there must be specialists that hunt the weaker and lower animals, so there are narrow niches within this habitat. so instead of having to look for many generalists there will only be certain kinds of predators that only eat certain nutrients and food. This is also a good place to study because we don't know what goes on in rocky hill and through this project we can find out so much just by studying the the niches and behavior of predator prey relationships. Another reason why this area is good to study is because of the location. It located at our very school and I'm sure people are going to want to know exactly what kind of biological things are living amongst us.

A predator prey relationship that can easily be found is that of the hibiscus plant and some insect that devours all of the leaves leaving nothing but an ugly mess of holes. the bugs must thrive off of these plants because even though there is a wide area of the plant, holes from insect bites can be found everywhere. I have yet to find out what type of insect is the predator in this relationship but i can infer that it is a specialist due to the fact that there are no other plants with the same pattern or holes on the leaves. A good hypothesis that can be made is that if the Science teachers and volunteers do not constantly take care of and nurture the hibiscus plant then its rate of growth will rapidly go down, and because there is no other source of food for the insect, its population number will also decline rapidly.