BIO112 Aquatic Ecology Lab Report Template-Spring 2024

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Eastern Kentucky University *

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Apr 3, 2024

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Lab Report: Species Interactions in an Experimental Aquatic Ecosystem Objective The objective of this assignment is to give you a guided experience with reporting scientific results in a written format. Rather than have you write an entire report, we did most of the work for you. Your job is to make necessary changes throughout the report to reflect the macroinvertebrate diversity that we measured in this lab. Instructions 1. Read the report template, noting the red comments within the body of the text. 2. Replace the red text with your added information AND according to the red instructions. 3. Be sure to BOLD the text that you insert 4. Delete this page’s objectives and any margin comments, instructions or red text . 5. Your assignment will be heavily penalized if you do not follow these instructions! This lab report is partially completed for you. In some places, you will add a few sentences to a particular section. In other places, you will complete an entire section with the included instructions. Instructions are given in red and should be removed from your assignment before you turn it in. The format of a lab report mirrors that of a scientific journal article. You will be doing the abstract in this lab report; these are typically short (often less than 300 word) summaries of the entire article. This lab report includes an Introduction which provides general background information about the research being done and why that research is important and useful. You will need to add two references and summary statements of them. This section is followed by a Methods section that describes the procedures used in the research. Note that this section is provided for you. The Methods are written as a brief narrative, not as a bulleted list or as a recipe. The methods should provide enough information that someone generally trained in research could reproduce your experiment. After the Methods, is the Results section, which is a brief listing of the findings of your research without any interpretation of those data. This format is done so that a scientist reading the lab report or research article can find the major findings quickly without having to wade through a lot of text. Then, after the Results, one gives the Discussion section. This section is where the research tries to explain why the results turned out as they did, especially if they are unexpected. The author must relate the data given in the results section to research from other authors by citing additional references. The author must also explain any unexpected problems or factors that may have affected the results AND mention changes that could be incorporated into future research that would help improve the quality of the results obtained from the research. In general a lab report or journal article must be written in the passive voice and the 3 rd person. All sections should be in the past tense, except the discussion section, which can be in the past tense or in the present tense. Before you turn in your lab report, be sure to remove all red text, which are the instructions, and bold your added sections. This entire page should not be included on your final lab report

Species Interactions in an Experimental Aquatic Ecosystem Madison Hardy, Department of Biological Sciences, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY 40475, USA ABSTRACT The abstract should be written as a single paragraph. Provide a brief background to this study in one sentence. One sentence regarding the objective of the study. One sentence regarding the methods. One to two sentences summarizing the results. One sentence regarding a conclusion. Add at least one limitation for the study, and why the limitation is a limitation. The Abstract should be entirely your own work. Do not, for example, copy and paste parts from the Introduction or Methods into the Abstract (or any other source). KEY WORDS : Add five key words, each separated by a comma. These key words are usually words that are regularly mentioned in your report or are important terms to remember.

INTRODUCTION The arrangement of organisms into a food web of multiple trophic levels has been understood for many years (Elton 1927). In such a food web, photosynthetic organism or producers acquire energy from the sun and store it in chemical form. That energy is transferred to organisms that eat producers, called primary consumers or herbivores in the next higher tropic level. Energy in that level is transferred to the next higher trophic level when the herbivores are consumed by carnivores, also called, secondary consumers. However, the exact mechanisms that regulate how different trophic levels affect each other is still being researched and can vary from ecosystem to ecosystem. In some cases, nutrients such as phosphorus, seem to limit phytoplankton growth (Schindler 1974, Fisher et al. 1992). A more recent example of such “bottom-up” control would be ____________________________ (Insert a one or two sentence summary of your bottom-up paper here. You can rewrite my lead in if you want. Be sure to cite it properly. More details of citing a source in text will be given at the end. Compare your intext citations to other citations in this introduction. If there are differences, you need to revise your in-text citations). In other cases, carnivores exert control over the trophic levels below them by controlling herbivore numbers directly and numbers of organisms in lower trophic levels more indirectly (Hrbacek et al. 1961, Brooks and Dodson 1965). A more recent example of such “top- down” control would be ____________________________ (Insert a one or two sentence summary of your top-down paper here. You can rewrite my lead in if you want. Be sure to cite it properly. More details of citing a source in text will be given at the end). You must use two different articles here even if you find one article that might serve both. For the purposes of this assignment, you must include two different articles cited in the Introduction and Literature Cited sections. Objective and Hypothesis : The objective of this research was to test whether bottom-up or top-down control of ecosystems is more important in regulating trophic level interactions. To do this, an experiment was conducted using a simplified model ecosystem. The experiment’s design allowed for bottom-up and top-down regulation to be tested simultaneously. Insert your hypothesis about whether top-down or bottom-up control of ecosystems is happening in the experiment we conducted in this lab. METHODS A 2 x 2 factorial design was chosen for this experiment to allow for both bottom up and top down control to be studied simultaneously. Four treatment groups were established, a control group, an increased phosphorus group, a group with five carnivorous aquatic insects added (Juvenile damselflies, Class Odonata), and a group with both five juvenile damselflies and phosphorus added. All water was obtained from the artificial wetland near the New Science Building on the Eastern Kentucky University campus, Richmond, KY, USA. Forty-two 38L aquaria were filled with 8L water each. A graduated cylinder was used to measure 10mL of an algae stock solution into each tank and ten primary consumers ( Daphnia magna ) were added to each tank to attempt to ensure the phytoplankton and zooplankton communities were similar in

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each tank. Each treatment group was replicated approximately 10 times. Tanks were kept in a laboratory at ambient temperature with a 16h light/8h dark cycle. Tanks were monitored periodically, and any dead damselflies were removed and replaced. Tanks were analyzed two weeks after collection. Chlorophyll levels were estimated using a fluorimeter (Turner Designs, AquaFluor). One liter of water from each tank was filtered using a 430um screen and resulting organisms were counted using a dissection microscope. The filtrate was filtered again using a 43um screen and organisms on the screen were estimated using a subsampling technique. A 10mL subsample of the twice filtered water was concentrated by centrifugation to 2ml and organism density estimated using a subsampling technique on a compound microscope (Lau and Wigginton 2020). Statistical analysis: Data from all laboratory sections was aggregated and analysis was conducted using R (The R Project for Statistical Computing) and RStudio (Posit). Single Factor ANOVA was used to test for significant differences between the average values of treatments for both chlorophyll levels and zooplankton numbers. Statistical significance was determined when P ≤ 0.05. RESULTS This portion of a lab report should be a straightforward listing of the findings of your research without any interpretation . Review the figures generated in lab using R. Mention the averages and standard error given for each dependent variable in the following format , Average ± SEM (Standard Error of the Mean). These numbers can be found in our RStudio workbook as conducted during class. You should not mention every data point that went into those averages. You might mention a few interesting high or low values however. When you mention data, cite what figure had that data on it. For example, you might say: “The average concentration of chlorophyll (319.1 ± 121.4 RFU) in tanks with phosphorous and damselflies was significantly higher (p=0.023) than the average concentration of chlorophyll (151.3 ± 37.6 RFU) in tanks with phosphorous and without damselflies (Table 1, Figure 1).” In this case, Table 1 contains the ANOVA results (p = 0.023) and Figure 1 is the figure that contains the averages (“319.1 ± 121.4 RFU” and “151.3 ± 37.6 RFU”) you just mentioned. To reiterate, do not comment on the meaning of the data or any explanation of why it might be so. Be sure to mention the results of the ANOVA (See page 131 in the lab manual, Lab 11, for proper formatting). That will be done in the next section. Note that RFU is short for “Relative Fluorescence Units”, our unit of measure to stand in for algae concentration. The Results should be formatted as a normal paragraph in the same style as the rest of the report. DISCUSION In this section you should interpret your data. Do the data support whether bottom-up or top-down control of the ecosystem is occurring? Are the data clear? You should mention specific data and whether they support bottom-up or top-down control. In other words, did the data support your hypothesis or not? Be sure to refer to the appropriate figures. Mention whether

the ANOVA supports either bottom-up or top-down control. Refer back to your journal articles and draw comparisons between your data and the journal articles. Cite those references correctly as done in the Introduction. Were there any possible problems with the experiment that might have impacted the results (and there are several potential sources of error)? The Discussion should be formatted as a normal paragraph in the same style as the rest of the report LITERATURE CITED Insert the journal article(s) (to the list below) that you added to the introduction and discussion. Be sure to use the correct formatting. Compare your new citations to the ones in the list. Do they look similar or different? If you notice differences, revise your references. Place your references in the correct alphabetical order. Use Lab 6 and Lab 12 as references to make sure your in-text citations and Literature Cited citations are in the proper format. This is a very common source of error and points deduction. Brooks J, Dodson S. 1965. Predation, body size, and composition of plankton. Science 150: 28- 35. Elton C. 1927. Animal Ecology. Sidgwick and Jackson, London. Fisher TR, Peele ER, Ammerman JW, Harding LW. 1992. Nutrient Limitation of phytoplankton in Chesapeake Bay. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 82: 51-63. Hrbáček J, Dvořakova M, Kořínek V, Procházkóva L. 1961. Demonstration of the effect of the fish stock on species composition of zooplankton and the integrity of metabolism of the whole plankton assemblage. Verh. Internat. Verein. Limnol. 14:192-195. Lau J, Wigginton AJ. 2020. Ecology and Evolution Lab Manual. Van-Griner Publishing, Cincinnati, OH. Schindler DW. 1974. Eutrophication and recovery in experimental lakes: implications for lake management. Science 184:897-899. TABLES AND FIGURES Replace the red values in the below table with your results from the Aquatic Ecology Lab. Use a similar format to what is described on page 131 of the lab manual, under “Writing the Results.”

Table 1. Add an appropriate table title here! Be sure to answer the questions what, who, where, and when! The numbers below are the F statistic and the p value from the ANOVA analysis. The formatting of the F statistic in the table is F df between groups, df within groups = F Statistic. The numbers in subscript can be found on the ANOVA output tables on your Excel worksheet. The title should be formatted as a normal sentence or sentences. F Statistic p value Chlorophyll level F 3,40 = 3.539 0.023 Zooplankton number F 3,41 = 1.649 0.193 Copy and paste your figures from your RStudio workbook here, after the table. Make sure that you give them descriptive titles so that someone unfamiliar with this experiment might have some idea about what the data in the figure means. For example, “Figure 1 Chlorophyll levels” is a poor title because it provides no information besides the material being analyzed. A better title would be like this, “Figure 1. Average chlorophyll levels are compared below under varying levels of phosphorus and the presence or absence of an invertebrate predator in a model ecosystem experiment conducted by introductory biology students at Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY, in November, 2020.” Of course, update the dates. This title gives much more information for the reader to use in interpreting the figure. It includes the “What, Who, Where, and When” emphasized in the previous lab report. The title should be formatted as a normal sentence or sentences. treatments <chr> chl_means <chr> chl_ses <chr> no phosphorous no Odonata 133.068888888889 27.846142434039 no phosphorous Odonata 132.622222222222 21.024053603867 phosphorous no Odonata 335.25 76.5069760798902 phosphorous Odonata 333.25 52.5224679813996 Chlorophyll/anova Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F) Treatment_P 1 365477 365477 15.210 0.000464 *** Treatment_Odonata 1 13 13 0.001 0.981390 Treatment_P:Treatment_Odonata 1 5 5 0.000 0.988138 Residuals 32 768935 24029 --- Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

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treatments <chr> zoo_means <chr> zoo_ses <chr> no phosphorous no Odonata 14.7777777777778 4.7104428247181 no phosphorous Odonata 8.66666666666667 2.05480466765633 phosphorous no Odonata 24.7 5.2409710720226 phosphorous Odonata 8.25 2.20186609168548 Zoo/anova Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F) Treatment_P 1 289 289.0 1.991 0.16790 Treatment_Odonata 1 1132 1131.7 7.796 0.00876 ** Treatment_P:Treatment_Odonata 1 239 239.0 1.647 0.20865 Residuals 32 4645 145.2 --- Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

BIO112 Aquatic Ecology Lab Report Template-Spring 2024

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