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See all the wonderful things Jessica Su has made

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In our experiment of duckweed population growth,  we learned that greater levels of nitrate solution increase the growth rate of duckweed. We also learned that duckweed needs nutrients to survive, not only sunlight and water. The control group did not have any drops of nitrate solution, so it stopped growing after the seventh day. The group with 15 drops of nitrate solution grew with the fastest rate, so we can conclude that a population with the most nutrients will grow the fastest. If I could change anything about the experiment, I would have had the same person count the duckweed lobes everyday, because it could have eliminated error and increased the accuracy of our data. Overall, my group kept our process consistent to ensure accurate results. I made sure to focus on the task at hand and make sure that each petri dish was the same except for the changed variable. The group as a whole worked well together and each did our part to make sure the experiment ran smoothly.
Questions:
-If there was too much nitrate solution, would the plant be harmed?
- If we kept the experiment going, would the plants grow until they ran out of space, or would they die before then?

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In my group's experiment, we learned that the presence of nitrate solution in a plants' environment aids its growth. We also learned that limiting reagents in an ecosystem cause the population to level out at a specific number. The limiting reagent in our experiment was the presence of nutrients. This caused our duckweed to follow a logistic growth pattern. Logistic growth means that the per capita rate of increase approaches zero as the population size nears it's carrying capacity. The model follows an S-shaped curve as it reaches carrying capacity. Carrying capacity is the number of people, other living organisms, or crops that a region can support without environmental degradation. This means that the population can no longer increase due to lack of resources or space. Animals need nutrients to survive, and if there is a lack of nutrients, the population will cease to grow. This can tie to research because scientist can study how different variables affect the growth of population. With the duckweed lab, we examined the growth of a population by changing the amount of nutrients in each environment. This experiment can be modified by changing the variable to research different aspects of population growth. It also helps us understand why duckweed has become overpopulated in many freshwater lakes and ponds.

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Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXlyYFXyfIM
Application to Lab (voice over): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9-Ep4KhtDHbWDhwQm1fWG5KeVE/view

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-Each duckweed frond was bright green at the beginning, but lost its color and turned transparent when it died.
-Some petri dishes grew green whispy algae during the last few days.
-The petri dishes with more drops of nitrate solution grew more Duckweed lobes at a faster rate.

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- Blue Line - Control
- Red Line - 5 Drops
- Yellow Line - 10 Drops
- Green Line - 15 Drops

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15 Drops

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1. Measure 25 mL of filtered water into each petri dish.
2. Place 10 duckweed lobes into each petri dish.
3. Label one petri dish as the control group, with no nitrate solution added, and set aside.
4. To another petri dish, label it as 5 drops, and add 5 drops of the nitrate solution.
5. To the third petri dish, label it as 10 drops, and add 10 drops of the nitrate solution.
6. To the final petri dish, label it 15 drops, and add 15 drops of the nitrate solution.
7. Count the number of lobes in each petri dish every day for 14 days.

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-four petri dishes
-filtered water
-nitrate solution
-40 duckweed lobes

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If the concentration of nitrate solution is higher, then the growth of the duckweed population will be greater.

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How do the levels of nitrate affect the population growth of Duckweed?