Biodiversity

In the Swiss National Park, the nature and therefore our meadow rests untouched from almost all human interaction. This means that animals, especially deer, are responsible for the entertainment of the meadows. The area where the sheep graze is entertained by the sheep and also a bit by the farmers. In this project the difference between these two environments is investigated, mainly the number of species and the height of the plants.

The number of plant species is expected to be higher in the national park, because there is no human intervention on the Flora of the meadow. Also, the density of the animals that graze in the national park should be lower, because the national park has more places where animals can graze than a sheep meadow.  Therefore, the height of the plants may be lower in the national park because they could tend to grow wider as to not get eaten by deer. It was hypothesized that the colours might be less vibrant on the meadow, as to not attract the attention of animals.

We created a survey on Survey123 where we can write down all the plants and their corresponding heights. To find out the species of the plants and avoid double counting, we used the phone app “flora incognita”, which can recognize plants from photos.

It was decided to do the research on the Alp Stabelchod in the National Park, which is famous for the appearances of deer. The other spot that was used is the Alp Buffalora right outside of the National Park, where a farm with sheep is located. Since it’s impossible to search for plant species on the entire meadow in a day, it was decided to search for them in 3 separate areas of 1x1m in each meadow.

More plant species were found on the meadow on which sheep graze (21) than on the meadow in the national park (12). There was no significant difference in the height of the plants. The plant colors on the meadow where less rich, than these on the Alp Stabelchod.

We found quite a few more plant species on the sheep meadow than in the National Park. This leads us to the conclusion that the biodiversity is higher in this area. We assume that sheep are more selective while eating and leave out more plant species that can grow in those areas. This shows that plants developed mechanisms to protect themselves, because animals can hardly eat just at the ground. They can’t tear out plants that stick close to the ground. Although it might also be because of errors in the search of plant species. The height of the plant is also similar. Nearly all plants are smaller than 10cm, a great part of them is also smaller than 5cm. The reason for this can be assumed to be that both meadows are used by animals equally intensive. The colors in the antional Park were less rich and looked like one would expect during summer, while the colors of the sheep meadow were richer. The probable reason for this is that the sheep meadow was near a body of water and isn’t affected by dryness as much as the meadow in the national park.

An interesting detail is that some species grew in the national park but not on the sheep meadow and vice versa. This can probably be attributed to the differences in food preference of deers and sheeps. Neither of them eats thistles as they could be found a lot in both locations and they are spiky. Dandelion could only be found on the sheep meadow, so we conclude from this that deer eat them but not sheep. The appearance of Edelweiss could be a local occurrence as they are quite rare. The lichens grow only in the National Park, probably because the farmer removed them from the sheep meadow.