I chose to do my research assignment on oregon grape. This quadrant was located in Cherry Creek falls in Duvall/Carnation. About a mile in on the main trail there is a wrecked car on the right side, and just a few feet ahead is a second trail which leads to this site. The area has moss covered trees and the ground is very wet and muddy considering it hasn't rained for a few days. Up the hill on the second trail, it begins as sword ferns, but about 15 feet up it becomes a mixture of sword ferns and oregon grape, and tapers off to just oregon grape. The average between quadrants was six, with more further up the trail than near the bottom.
I'm not exactly sure why the oregon grape and sword fern were in distinct separate locations, but I have a few ideas. One might be because of water usage and how water travels throughout this hillside, which might explain why ferns were mostly at the bottom of the hill. Sword ferns might not be as drought tolerant as oregon grape. The other prospect could be because of light, which the bottom of the hill received more of. I could see this technique being helpful with pin pointing what might cause a population to decline. Different samples could be taken from separate areas, and habitat differences between the two may explain why one area has a thriving species while the other area(s) are lacking. Quadrant samples could be different sizes as well depending on population density.
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