Abbie Weimer- Blog Post #4: An Ecological Analysis of the Garden and your Plants

There are many abiotic factors that affect the growth of our broccoli plant. Our plant needs sunlight to survive, or else it cannot undergo the process of photosynthesis. Sunlight is an abiotic factor. The health of our plant also depends on the weather, and the temperature that surrounds the plant. Space is also a huge factor that affects our broccoli plant. This density dependent factor can have a big impact on the growth of the plant. If there isn’t enough space for our plant to grow, it won’t get the proper nutrients it needs. Some biotic factors that affect our plant are other plant species, animals, insects, and fungi.


We know our plants are competing with other plant species in the same niche for resources. Since our plants are growing in a planter box alongside other plants, they are all fighting for water, carbon, and nitrogen. There is plentiful resources in this case, but because of the close proximity it is technically competition.


Because of this “competition” there are in most cases “winners” and “losers”. The winners are determined by the survivors. The losers are the species that die. It is not always this clear, however. Sometimes the winner is the organism that grows just a bit more than the other, or the one that reproduces more. It is hard to tell what the case is, especially so soon in the growth process.
Our broccoli plant takes part in other interactions as well. Everyday our plant interacts with other organisms in different ways. Rather than there being one organism more successful than the other, both of the organisms can live side by side in mutualism. This happens with our plant and bacteria. Bacteria provides nitrogen, which is essential to plant growth, and the bacteria gets to feed off rotting plant material. This is called symbiosis.


There is succession in the garden, as there is in all environments. It is secondary succession because there is already soil, it does not have to be made. As previously existing plants die, they are replaced by new plants. Even though this process is led by humans, secondary succession is still occuring. This cycle repeats over and over.

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