The Effect of a Decomposing Odocoileus Virginianus on the Surrounding Ecosystem

Overview

This project was conducted to determine the effect of an Odocoileus virginianus carcass on an ecosystem. It was predicted that the carcass would increase the animal presence, compared to an area without a carcass. Also, the levels of nitrogen, carbon, sulfur, phosphorus and bacteria in the soil would increase. Plants grown in soil taken from underneath the deer carcass would exhibit increased height, and plant color would be darker. The deer carcass was staked down and a game camera was used to monitor wildlife interaction. Every fifteen days for a sixty-day period soil samples were taken. Temperature, humidity, and precipitation were recorded daily. The soil samples were used to grow Brassica rapa, and were sent to be analyzed for nutrient and bacteria content. Very little difference was found in the stem lengths of the control and experimental plants. More wildlife was spotted in the area with the deer carcass. There was more carbon, nitrogen and bacteria in the experimental soil compared to the control soil. There was no detectable amount of phosphorus or sulfur in any of the samples. The stem length, and color hypotheses were not supported, but the wildlife, mineral and microorganism hypotheses were supported. Next time I would like to do a more long-term study allowing the bones to decompose, because bones contain a high percentage of minerals.

Competition history

• AJAS 2018 Category not listed

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Plant Sciences projects
• AJAS Plant Sciences projects
• Every AJAS 2018 project