Martha Valles Per.

1 APES 10-18-13 Phytoplankton Lab Write-Up

Title: The effect of the phytoplankton growth with nutrient. Background: What do you know about phytoplankton and the importance of them in the oceanic food web? The Nutrient Fertilization is affecting the oceans. Oxygen concentrations are higher in the surface waters where the phytoplankton live. Phytoplankton live within the ocean, and they need nutrients, they are plant that live in the ocean. They dont usually have enough Fe that they need to grow. They grow better when they have light and nutrients. Phytoplankton is very important because without them there wouldnt life in the ocean. They form the base of the food web in the ocean.

Hypothesis: If we add more nutrient to the phytoplankton, then the phytoplankton will growth faster. Also there would be more phytoplankton in the water.

Brief Protocol: Materials: 5 mL of phytoplankton culture 100 mL of filtered seawater 50-250mL Erlenmeyer flask Cotton Ball Available light source Pipettes Nitrate, Phosphate and Iron nutrient solution Microscopes In groups of 2, there would be 3 each testing one of the three experiment. One testing with control, other with nutrients only, and the last one with nutrient and Fe. (The data will be share.) Add water to the beakers, 100ml. The Control groups, thats all they do, then close it with a cotton ball. The other two have to add their nutrients. Third group nutrient and Fe. Add algal culture. Close beakers with a cotton ball. Place them under a sunny window. We checked our beaker every single day. Searching for any growth in the phytoplankton. We used microscopes to find the amount of cells. And collected data.

The variables monitored were the growth of the phytoplankton. Counting the numbers of cell, in each of the tests being experimented.

Data Table: Phytoplankto DAY 1 n treatment Control Nutrients Nutrients & Iron 90% 2 95% 0 85% 0 DAY 2 DAY 3 DAY 4 DAY 5 DAY 6 DAY 7 DAY 8

97% 4 91% 0 87% 6

95% 8 93% 7 87% 6

96% 15 88% 7 93% 6

98% 18 92% 2 87% 8

94% 120 91% 26 85% 34

98% 28 91% 4 92% 39

93% 2 92% 5 93% 45

Graph: Phytoplankton treatment Process.

Conclusion: If we add more nutrient to the phytoplankton, then the phytoplankton will growth faster. Also there would be more phytoplankton in the water. My hypothesis was correct, the phytoplankton

grow faster and there was more phytoplankton in the water. The experiment with nutrient and Fe growth faster and it had more. It shows an slow process at first, but then the number of cell increase, being the one with the more phytoplankton cell at the end, with 45 cell. The importance of the nutrient in the ecosystem is that it makes things grow faster and with abundance, phytoplankton really likes nutrients. Also that are really important to the environment, it creates life. It creates oxygen, and with more phytoplankton in the water there would be more life, and more nutrients. They need nutrients and Fe. What I learned about the collection was to see more clearly the change in the phytoplankton the the three different stages. Also it helped me to be more organize with the data, and to have an more accurate answer to find the difference, results. They are close, but they are different in the percent and number of cells. Because we use different experiments/solutions and we located our beakers in different places in the sunny window. This shows that adding more nutrients and Fe helps the growth of the phytoplankton, this can create more life and give. It can give more oxygen. The Pros are that it give life to the parts of the ocean that are in dead zones. Cons, to much of something can be bad for the ocean. If it has more nutrients that water, the whole ocean would be cover in phytoplankton.