natalieunguyen's Journal

For this exercise, I visited a coastal shrub ecosystem on the San Francisco coast and a chaparral ecosystem in the Berkeley hills.

The coastal shrub plants are characterized by being low-growing and having drought-deciduous leaves. They are adapted to a semi-arid climate.

The chaparral plants are characterized by being drought-tolerant and having hard evergreen leaves.

Both ecosystems are pretty dry, so the plants tend to be low-growing and have small leaves to conserve water.

My natural history story is about the Ladybird Beetle, or "ladybug," as I called them when I was a child. The scientific family name is Coccinellidae, and they are .8 to 18mm in size and are characterized by having red, orange, or yellow wing covers with black dots. Different species can vary, though: Vibidia duodecimguttata have whitish spots on a brown background. Ladybird beetles have black heads, legs, and antennae. They are found worldwide.

They are considered useful because they feed on garden pests such as aphids. They are omnivorous and eat honeydew, pollen, nectar, plant sap, and various fungi in addition to other animals.

Survival: Some species of ladybird beetles lay infertile eggs with their regular fertile eggs to provide a food source for the larvae when they hatch. They lay their eggs near prey, so that their larvae can find their food source easily.

Predators: Animals that prey on Coccinellidae are birds, frogs, wasps, spiders, and dragonflies

The atlas Ladybirds (Coccinellidae) of Britain and Ireland published in 2011 showed a 20% decline in ladybird beetle native species due to environmental changes and invasive species. One of these species is the Asian harlequin, which was introduced from continental Europe to control pests.

Source: Wikipedia

For this exercise, I observed flowering and leafed out plants. I did it late, so I did not see any plants with no flowers or dormant plants. The treasureflower is flowering, and the tree is leafed out.

I observed three things from different iconic taxa. I saw an Arachnid, an Insect, and a Plant.

Went on a hike in Berkeley today and saw some plants and animals that last year's class also found.

Edit: 50 additional observations from today http://www.inaturalist.org/calendar/natalieunguyen/2014/5/6