Nate+Cox's+Journal

Free Journal #1 A path leading to the giant pond winds its way through various different types of plants and flowers, ranging from the hibiscus flower to a banana tree. On the way down to the pond I saw 4 bees, 2 mongooses, 7 ducks, and 3 birds. Ho`omaluhia Botanical Garden is a humungous piece of land with many trees and bushes and an abundance of different flowers and plants. In this area there are many mongoose and ducks. In the giant pond, there are fish which we must put back after we fish them out, because there are many flowers bees and mosquitoes are prominent. As well as a few unidentified insects. Abiotic factors in this area would have to be the plant-life which allow insects, the canopy which allows a shady place for animals. the climate in this area is light rainfall, warm and the tempuratue is about 78 – to 82 degrees. The pond in the center of Ho`omaluhia allows fish and ducks to live. This will be an excellent place to study because the area is filled with plants, which supply shelter and food for different types of species. The area is very big, offering different environments for different animals, just like the pond in the center. There are plants floating in the water, they are dark green leaves that are small and soft. The pond is deep so plants must be very tall underwater. There are bushes around the pond as well, on the water and growing outwards. Plants have holes due to weather, animals, insects, wind, and birds. Animal droppings about the width of your thumb, unsure about the animal doing the droppings. The behavior of the ducks are very protective of the little ducks especially the black ducks which are more prominent in the area, very loud and could possibly be aggressive. They swam across the pond in a group but stopped when we fed them bread. The mongooses walk one by one, I only saw one mongoose at a time. When I did see them, the were running from one side of the bushes to the other, they'd run and then stop look left and right and then run again. In the garden there are three different types of ants. The water is murky and hard to see thru, not for swimming. I saw a school of small fish swim by while feeding the ducks. They swam rather quickly across the pond to the other side. They were grey fish about ten of them. There were also a lot of gold fish in the water, near the very tall plants at the surface. Assigned Journal #1 A predator-prey relationship i see evident at Ho`omaluhia Botanical Garden is the hunt for bird eggs by the infamous mongoose. While I was there, I saw in a sprout of bush near the pond, three eggs on the ground cracked open and empty. At first I thought they must have been cracked open by the actual bird, but later on in my second hour I saw a mongoose running away from the same area. I asked the volunteers at the garden about the mongooses, and they said they eat the eggs for food. This relationship between the bird population and mongoose population, keep them each at a stable population according to the volunteers. I think the ducks are so protective because the mongooses are eating their eggs, but I'm guessing because the mongooses are so fast and unsociable the ducks think the humans are killing the eggs, which is why they squawk when they see us. The eggs are what's drawing the mongooses toward the water, because whenever I saw them, they were running from the pond into the trees and bushes surrounding the pond. This means that the mongoose rely on the pond supplying food for them, like fallen fruits and the eggs they find from the birds. The mongoose are what I consider indirect predators because they are not killing another animal that can run away, they are killing an egg. If the birds choose to move where they lay there eggs, I think there might be a decrease in mongoose population because they wouldn't know where to find the eggs. An example is if the ducks laid their eggs on the other side of the pond. It could take a while for the mongooses to find them which could cause them to die off. Another example is inside the pond, there are gold fish and grey fish. The grey fish, according to the volunteers, eat the gold fish. The grey fish fit in with their environment much better than the gold fish, and are larger. Because of their size and color, it is easy to spot a gold fish in the murkiness of the water. Making them prime food in the pond. Free Journal Entry #2 In this project I will take on the role of plant life. On my second visit to Ho`omaluhia Botanical Garden I searched for questions about the plants. Although very hard to do, I've come up with a few that may be answered with further observations. As I made my way through the garden I noticed while walking under the canopy trees, that there were no plants or bushes under the canopy. Why are there no plants under the canopy? I would guess because the lack of sunshine to the floor and less water, there wouldn't be any life beside the animals walking by, but as I walked further down I noticed a sprout of a new plant coming out from the ground. This made me wonder even more because, there was only one plant in the middle of a basically empty path way. Perhaps plants to sprout out, but I think if I go back in the next few weeks the plant will start to die and wither away, because I don't think life can be sustained with little sunshine and little water. At Ho`omaluhia, you walk through a forest to get to the giant pond, but on the other side of that pond is a field. Why do bushes grow along the pond's side near the forest, but not the field? I think that it is easier for plants and trees to grow and spread when it is near bushes and trees, because it is a field on the other side, I doubt there will be a growth there because the aren't bushes near to spread in that area. However, that area is used for fishing and camping, so it could have been cleared out by the park so that it could have space for campers and fishers. In the center of the giant pond is a little island, on it are trees and bushes, my question is, how did it get there? If it is surrounded by water how would bushes and trees be able to grow there if nothing was next to it spreading seeds? There are many inferences I can make with a question like this. My first one is, birds. Birds could have easily carried a seed or a twig to that island. They could have eaten a seed and dropped it off there. My second is that the water could have carried seeds over to the island. My third inference, and a giant stretch it is, is that the pond might not have been there a long time ago. Although very unlikely it could have been forest before it flooded with water. Kaneohe used to be a giant crater until half of it fell into the sea, this could have caused a giant wave pushing water into the ditch that we now know as Ho`omaluhia.

Assigned Journal #2 As I stated in the observations in Free journal #1, in this area their are more black and dark ducks than there are white ducks. The water in the giant pond is a murky and dark color, very unclear and hard to see thru, so as a duck floating on the surface it would be much more easier to live with a darker coat. My guess is that while the chicks were young, whatever that was hunting them, maybe a cat, a mongoose, or a larger bird found it easier to find a lighter colored in this environment due to the darker color of the forest and the water. This caused the lighter ducks to die out and the darker ducks to live and reproduce successful and darker birds. Again, the environment in which the birds live, is on the dark water and dark forest and bushes. I think the determining state, or when the lighter duck dies out, is when it is an infant. I believe this because in this botanical garden there aren't many predators larger then the ducks, so I don't think that anything is really hunting the ducks in it's adult form. So the ducks must be weeded out early on in life while they are much smaller and easier to prey on. In this case, the darker group is the preferable bird due to it's dark environment. Further more in my first assigned journal I talked about how the mongoose prey on the eggs of the birds, this may also have been a deciding factor. I'm not sure if the color of the egg determines the coat each bird will have, but the eggs I saw were an off white color. This may be a placement issue among the birds, where to lay their eggs, the smarter bird would lay the eggs far from the mongooses, making smarter birds. Another specie in this area that may not be as fit, are the gold fish in the giant pond. The water is a murky grey color, which makes the gold fish stand out when looking down into the pond. This must make it a lot easier for the bigger grey fish to see them in the water. Although it would seem that way, based on my observations, there were more gold fish in a school then grey fish. This could be caused by visual impairment, because the grey fish blend in better. Or the gold fish are much faster and can escape tem much easier. In this instance it would be favorable to the faster gold fish, and favorable to the darker colored fish in the water. Free Journal #3 There are only bushes bordering the giant pond. I am wondering if the pond affects where or how the plants grow. The plant seems healthy, very green, and only some leaves have holes in them. There really is no shape to the plant, it seems rather freeform compared to other patches along the pond, and they all grow differently. If the same plant grew at different sides of the pond then it will affect the way it grows. Some things I notice are that some of the same plants grow at different areas of the garden, some are along the pathway leading to the pond, and others are closer to the pond. The plant closer to the pond seems larger. But is it healthier? If the same plant were to be grown at different places, one near the pond and one further away, then the plant closer to the pond will be healthier and larger. The plant on the pathway seems healthy, there is no substantial damage to any of its’ parts, minor brown spots, and some leaves are eaten through. The plant closer to the pond is larger, it has some brown spots, not as many as the other plant, but its leaves have more holes in them. I will infer that because the plant closer to the pond has more leaves, it must mean that the area has more bugs eating them. If a the same plant grew closer to the pond and far away from the pond, then the plant closer to the pond would be less healthy due to more bugs around the pond. This hypothesis is due to the fact that more bugs swarm around water, like mosquitos. Ho`omaluhia is famous for it's mosquitos. So, bugs could be around. Furthermore, there were more mongooses around the pond than anywhere else, just as ducks were.

Assigned Journal #3 Free Journal #4 On this last and final visit to Ho`omaluhia Botanical Gardens, I conducted my experiments to see if the same plant grew in different areas of the pond, than the one closest to the pond will be much larger. Today, I observed the land at the gardens was a lot more muddy than previous visits. Some parts were actually brought up forming small mounds of mud tracks from trucks driving on it. Another thing I noticed was that the ducks were not on the land today, they were in the water. In comparison to previous visits, there was a lot less animal life that I could see. I didn't see any mongooses today, I saw 5 ducks, a flock of white birds flying, and i believe to be a goose, which I never saw before either. Overall it was a wet and muggy day for Ho`omaluhia, nonetheless, I conducted my experiment and took my measurements. After my observations I searched for plants of the same kind growing at different places. Which was not an easy task due to the many various sorts in the "Botanical Garden", obviously. Luckily I found a Plumeria tree near the pond and one further away. With this tree, I could clearly see that the one nearest the pond was larger. Plumeria trees don't grow very tall, rather, grow wider. This tree was very wide and had more plumeria flowers than the one away. The next thing I could find were banana trees, which grow in groups. The one nearest the pond however, had a lesser amount than the trees further away. It was shorter and took up less space. So I decided to find one more plant to be the deciding factor. I found the Haleconia in two different places. My measurements show that the Haleconia nearest the pond was larger. But I wasn't done just yet. To make this experiment complete I needed to know when these trees were planted. A Garden volunteer came with me to look at the trees. . Plumeria tree #2 was planted eight years ago, and Plumeria tree #1 was planted 6 years ago. The Banana tree # 2 was there since as long as they could remember, and Banana tree #1 was planted 10 years ago. Haleconia #1 sprouted on it's own about 5 years ago, just about the same time as they planted Haleconia #2 6 years ago. Apparently the volunteer's family has been a large of Ho`omaluhia's past. What was neat about the volunteer was that before we got to the trees, she already answered my question saying, "Plants near the pond will most likely grow larger and healthier, because they are near such a vital resource, however I could be wrong." But she wasn't, according to these measurements and the date these plants were planted, it would seem as though plants that grow nearer the pond, grow larger in scale. Assigned Journal #4