The Pink Wild Bean (Strophostyles umbellata) Julie E. Moore Nature Reserve

Pink Wild Bean

Characteristicshttp://plants.usda.gov/cgi_bin/plant_profile.cgi?symbol=STUM2

• Perennial vine with circular petals divided into 3 leaflets

• Flowers are irregular in shape and are up to 1.5cm wide (0.6 inches)

• Blooms first appear in early summer and continue into mid fall

Niche• Fields and open woods with sandy or rocky soil

• Found typically in waist-high grass and brush near and around wooded areas, not typically found in open areas of fields in constant sunlight

Habitat

• Most of eastern United States: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, East Texas, & Virginia

CharacteristicsAerial Views of the Wild Pink

Bean Locations In the Nature Reserve

Aerial Views of the Wild Pink Bean Locations

In the Nature Reserve

Methods of Study• The Pink Wild Bean was chosen due to its

visibility and unique characteristics• A 1-meter radius circle was used as the

area of study• A total of 30 areas were chosen

haphazardly from the Jewel E. Moore Nature Preserve

• Care had to be taken to insure all plants in the study area were found due to there ground dwelling nature

RESULTS:Dispersal Patterns of the Pink

Wild Bean Number

in plots Observed Freq. Observed Prob. Poisson Prob.

0 13 0.13 0.368

1 2 0.02 0.368

2 7 0.07 0.184

3 2 0.02 0.061

4 1 0.01 0.015

5 1 0.01 0.003

6 2 0.02 0.001

RESULTS:Dispersal Patterns of the Pink

Wild Bean

# of individuals / Plot

Poi

sson

pro

babi

lity

val

ues

Mean of 1.0

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

CONCLUSIONS:

• From the analysis of the “number of indiv. per plot vs. Poisson prob., it can be seen that the data most closely represents a random or a contagious distribution but led to conclusion with just visual data, to clarify statistically, a chi-square test was done

• The Variance to Mean ratio resulted in a chi square value of 120.06 with 29 degrees of freedom

• From Figure 4C.6, our data showed that our species fell well within the range of contagious

Conclusions cont.

• The clumped distribution of Pink Wild Bean could have resulted from competition of other species of vine as well as overgrowth and low sunlight regions of the prairie.