Friday, May 20, 2016

Dream Team Research Project-Ecospheres


Ivanna, Matthew, Nhy, Nhung

For our research project, we are attempting to recreate our original ecosphere conditions, which resulted in exceptionally large Daphnia magna. We are replicating our original ecosphere in nine new different ecospheres, where the only variable we will be changing is the type of water in the system. In three of the ecospheres, there will be only pond water (approximately 2.7 liters), in three others there will be tap water (approx. 2.7 liters) and nutrients, and in the last three there will be a mixture of the pond water and the tap water + nutrients (adding up to approx. 2.7 liters). Already in our experiment, we have experienced some obstacles in attempting to recreate our original ecosphere as there was not enough resources to put two Bacota in each one or 20 daphnia, but regardless we have done our best to keep all variables the same in all ecospheres with the exception of the type of water. Over the next week or so, we will be monitoring the pH levels of the water in each of the ecospheres as well as oxygen levels and other elements we can test with a water testing kit. Below are pictures of some of our team members working on our ecospheres having the time of their lives.



5 comments:

  1. It will be an intriguing experiment as you are trying to figure out what caused the huge growth in Daphnias in your previous experiment of ecosphere. Water could be a major variable in this new experiment. Since pond water contains different nutrients than tap water, I am predicting the Daphnia will react and grow differently as there will be different nutrients available for them. Will you guys get the same size of Daphnia as in the experiment of ecosphere? Hopefully this experiment can lead us to a hypothesis that may serve as the answer. Looking forward for the results.

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  2. What's goooood Dream Team? I'm just curious on what your hypothesis and predictions are. In general, pond water is more acidic than tap water due to the aquatic vegetation dwelling in it. Pond water also contains more copper, nitrogen, and phosphorous, so how do you think this will affect your ecospheres?

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  3. Sounds like a good project. I hope you are able to figure why your daphnias grew so big.
    Comment By Robert Barker

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  4. I was really intrigued by what caused your Daphnis in the ecosphere to grow a lot! I am sure that will be a really good project to investigate with. I am just curious how acidity affects the growth of Daphnis. What would be your hypothesis for this?

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