Artemia Franciscana Habitat Selection Report

The influence different abiotic factors on the habitat selection of Artemia franciscana
Introduction:
Many organisms prefer environment with specific conditions called specialists, while other individuals can occupy diversifying environmental conditions called generalists (Biology 108 Lab Manual 2015-16). Artemia franciscana, a species of brine shrimps are able to resist to warm water temperatures and even develop thermal adaptations (Clegg et al. 2001). Other abiotic factors that affect habitat selection in brine shrimps are temperature, pH and gradients of light (Biology 108 Lab Manual 2015-16). If A. franciscana are also able to withstand wide range of environmental conditions like generalist, then we can predict that A. franciscana will

For temperature treatment, 89% of brine shrimps prefer Sec. 2, 3 and 4. This is a very high percent and does not show that species only prefer one specific environmental condition. For pH treatment, all four sections have species equally divided around the expected results. This is more evident where Chi-square test value (X2=19.91 with p≤0.05). For light, 90% of the species prefer Sec. 1, 3 and 4, each with different gradients of light shows that species are equally divided into all four sections. Through this test, we are able to say that the results are statistically significant [temperature (X2=100.01, df=3), pH(X2=19.91, df=3), and light (X2=109.10, df=3)] - see Table 1, 2,

franciscana are found in variety of harsh environment worldwide (Clegg et al. 2001), it was hypothesized the brine shrimps would be able to resist to other abiotic environments. It was predicted that A. franciscana would equally distribute over all sections of different pH, temperature, and light. The results of this study and the work done by Hand (1998), supports the hypothesis that A. franciscana are able to develop adaptions that allow them to survive and remain dormant in many environmental conditions, and allow them to tolerate a range environmental conditions. These results are supported by our Chi-square test where the Chi-square value (X2=100(temp.), 19.90(pH), 109.1(light)) is much greater than the critical table value of 7.81. Also, the observed values are fairly close to the expected value suggests that habitat selection is equally preferred in all categories, suggesting A. franciscana as a generalist species.
The experimental process could be improved by having more than two replications of each treatments. We could have 3 or even four treatments for each variable to increase the confidence in our results. If we increase the number of replications, any obscure data will be reduced with the average. This may allow us to see our data more