Conclusion

=Conclusion =

According to the results from both the fall and the spring, fungus and lichen are more abundant together in the spring time. Lichen is able to live in the harshest and most erratic weather conditions so it is of no surprise that lichen is present in both the spring and the winter time. We found very little fungus in the fall time, however. The presence of the lichen in both seasons also has to do with the presence of air pollution. The lower amounts of air pollution, the more abundant in number and size the lichen will be. We found a lot more lichen in the spring time, making us infer that there was less air pollution in the spring time. There might have been less lichen in the winter time because of the coal energy we use during the winter to heat up our homes.

 In terms of fungi, we were able to find more fungus in the spring than in the fall/winter time. Although fungi are able to live in many different conditions and habitats, warmth and humidity are essential to their prosperity and growth. This past winter was not very warm and was very arid which may have constituted to the lack of fungi in our studies for the fall and winter time. During the spring time, however, we were able to find more fungi on trees and pieces of dead wood due to the frequent rain falls we received during the spring, especially in late April and early May.

We found the presence of lichen to have no effect on the decomposition cycle of fungi. Usually, the presence of lichen indicates cleaner air, but there were very little fungi in the winter time despite the amount of lichen present. The presence of fungi depended on the humidity and climate of its surroundings. During the winter time, it was very cold and we barely had any camera life. We believe if we had stayed longer and had more battery for the camera, we would have been able to back up our findings even more. We only based our winter findings on a few trees, which are good enough evidence, but our data would have been much better off with more information during the winter. Also, the GPS’s exact coordinates are constantly changing with very slight movement. Although the coordinates are pretty close, they are not exact. Another source of error relates to the path we took both the winter and spring time. We never explored the entire orange trail. We also did not explore any other trails where there might have been different data. If this experiment is performed again they should compare trails or look at the entire orange trail, that would be a huge improvement in the validity of the data (that meaning a larger sample space).   A suggestion for further research would be to conduct an experiment on lichen and air pollution. The reasons being that lichen grows in areas where air pollution is low, and the size of the lichen is also based on the amount of the air pollution. The bigger the lichen is the less pollution there is. For example, our visits in the fall/winter and spring showed examples of the presence of air pollution and lichen at flat rock brook. (As seen in the conclusion paragraph.) Another topic for further research would be the negative and positive effects fungi has on our environment. We could look into pathogenic fungi and into mycorrhizzal fungi, as well as normal decomposing fungi and how the cycle works. 

Introduction to fungus and lichen Methods and Materials Data and Results Pictures of trees