My Kentucky Yard at 200
I'll be using my virtual yard as a source of examples for my Gardening for Wildlife class. Setting this project up, I thought it would be fun to get a decent number of taxa observed before classes start. Maybe 100? Pulling from almost 20 years worth of biological photos, that should be easy, right?
I've been aiming for diversity, and now have observations of 200 taxa posted, so this is a milestone. This is a dataset for my yard, and as a scientist, I now wonder: What's the data say?
Taxa from the yard fall into just three kingdoms: Animalia (168 species), Plantae (27 species), and Fungi (5 species). This is observer bias, as most life on Earth is microscopic. The number of bacteria, algae, protozoans, and microscopic fungi in the yard far exceeds all the large organisms I'll ever photograph.
According to Kentucky's Natural Heritage: An Illustrated Guide to Biodiversity (Abernathy et al., 2010) approximate species counts for Kentucky arthropods are: 15,200 insects, 500 arachnids, 100 crustaceans. For vertebrate species: 370 birds, 250 fish, 70 mammals, 50 reptiles, 50 amphibians. Kentucky also has 380 species of molluscs.
See the KET PBS site for a nice module with graphics: https://ket.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/knh.ssgroup/selectspeciesgroup/
ANIMALS in my yard so far: Arthropods are most diverse, with 132 taxa including arachnids (16 species), a crustacean, insects (113 species), a myriapod, and an entognathan (to a botanist, they look like insects). Vertebrates are next in line with 35 taxa including birds (22 species), mammals (6 species), amphibians (3 species), and reptiles (4 species). Only one lonely mollusc (a slug) has been documented. Considering that there's little aquatic habitat on my property, these counts generally reflect the relative sizes of the groups in the state, though the molluscs are under-represented.
FUNGI in my yard so far: Just five taxa: two plant pathogens, two saprophytes, and an ectoparasite of ladybugs. Or, from a more taxonomic perspective, two ascomycetes and three basidiomycetes. In my defense, most of my big fungi are on the ground in the shady woods and so hard to photograph. Plus, you really need microscopic views of spores for confident ID: so much work :(
PLANTS in my yard so far: Kentucky has about 2030 species of vascular plants (flowering plants, gymnosperms, and ferns & relatives). Observations from my yard document 27 species of angiosperms: 24 dicots and 3 monocots. This is observer bias again. My taxonomic training focused on angiosperms, and dicots in particular. There are plenty of mosses in the yard, a few ferns, and a gymnosperm (Eastern Redcedar).
As a botanist, I confess that I'm less likely to photograph a plant than an insect. For local plants, I typically a) already have a good photo somewhere, b) know it/ am confident I can ID it/ have no intention of IDing it (grasses = evil), or c) would rather have a pressed specimen. Insects, though, are cool, mysterious, and don't press well.
GOAL FOR THE FUTURE: Documenting more trees and shrubs.
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