Plant Update 4

     Our beans depend on abiotic factors like water availability, soil fertilization, and temperature for its survival. More abiotic factors are amount of sunlight and geographical features. Competition, for example other plants growing around them, and predators, for example birds and insects are biotic factors that affect our plants. Competition is when two or more species in an ecosystem need to use the same resource at the same place and time.
     Our plants are engaged in competition for sunlight and water. We can tell this because the are growing in the direction of the sun. The competition is the other plants that have grown up around our bean plants. They also compete for water by reaching their roots down as far as they can.
     "Winners" and "losers" are partially determined by what plants live and what plants die. Sometimes it is hard to tell  who the "winner" or "loser" is. Not being able to see the roots and tell how much water different plants are getting makes it difficult to determine who "wins" or "loses" the struggle.
     Our plants are involved with preditation as well. Our beans are attacked by predators, while they "prey" on sunlight. Predators are organisms that kill and eat other organisms for food. Prey are the organisms being eaten. The plants are also involved in symbiosis. Specifically they are involved in mutualism, in which two organisms use each other and both benefit. The plants provide nectar for bees and in return the bees fertilize our plant's flowers.
     When we first ventured into the garden there were no plants growing in the beds we planted our beans in. There was chopped down plants suggesting that there had been plants there before. This would mean that something like secondary succession occured as our beans grew and other plants grew up around them.