(20 points)* use vocabulary you have learned from the unit, such as: biotic, abiotic, vegetation, diversity, ground cover, soil, plant life, pioneer species, organisms, climax community2. this photograph was taken in 1989, 9 years after mount saint helens erupted. compare this photo with the 1983 photo. (first picture) -what has changed? what looks different? -how do you think those changes might have come about? 3. this photograph was taken in 1994, 14 years after mount saint helens erupted. compare and contrast this photo with the previous two. (second picture) -what changes do you see in the biotic and abiotic factors? -do you believe it has reached a climax community? why or why not? 4. this photograph was taken in 2004, 24 years after mount saint helens erupted. compare and contrast this photo with the previous three. (third picture) -what changes do you see in the biotic and abiotic factors? -do you think it has reached a climax community?

2. in this picture, there seems to be more vegetation slowly growing back. the bareness of the land is slowly growing back to its original environment. after the explosion, there was nothing left over, but the seeds from other plants were transferred to the desolate plain after a few years, and they slowly began to reclaim the land. there will not be many organisms here, because of the lack of food or shelter. 

3. in this picture, we can see that there is definitely more vegetation in the area. there are now more pioneer species, and we can assume  the plant life has brought more organisms back to the community. before, there were less biotic factors, but in this picture we can see there are many more biotic factors, some of the debris, that would be an abiotic factor, has been cleared away due to the new life. this area is not yet reached its community climax, due to the lack or steady growing plant life. this area is certainly on its way because of how quickly everything is growing, and in a few years will be a climax community. 

4. finally, in this picture we can see that the area has grown into quite the biome. the biotic life is now thriving on the new land, and the only biotic elements are the rocks, there is no more debris left behind from the eruption. we can also assume that other organism are beginning to live here permanently.  this area is now a climax community, everything is growing at a steady rate, and there are now factors like fungi,  animals, and plant life surrounding the eruption zone.