Oedipus Californicus Lab Report

Consecutive Temperature Affecting Algae Consumption

G. Bucher, M. Lehman, A. Mendoza, K. Standifird

University of Northern Colorado

Introduction

The Tigriopus Californicus is one of the most resilient types of copepods because of their flexibility within harsh environments. The natural environment of the T. Californicus is generally exposed to some stressful conditions and there have been many studies to explore just how much the copepods can withstand. Because of the nature of their natural rocky splash pool environment, they have evolved to withstand a constantly changing and extreme environment (Northwest Fisheries Science Center). We are curious how the copepods would differ in behavior if we instead placed them

Californicus when it is exposed to different environmental temperatures (independent variable). We will begin our experiment by setting up our copepods in an experimental setting. We will place the copepods in science lab well plates for the length of the experiment. We will only place a single copepod in every-other well on the plate so that when they are introduced to their new temperature, we can ensure proportionate cooling to each organism. Because we are skipping wells, we will make 2 plates per temperature group, creating a total of 6 plates. If each plate has a total of 24 wells then we will have a total of 72 copepods in our experiment. Our sample selection will be random and not limited to any specific age or gender of copepod. Each group will share the same water at a salinity of 35ppt, same algae, same amount of time exposed to light, amount of time in the experiment, etc. (standardized variables). We will have our control group at room temperature, an experimental group in higher temperature, and an experimental group at lower temperature. Each week we will use a spectrophotometer to measure the algae concentration of each well and compare it to the starting concentration of algae to discover each groups consumption rate. At the end of our experiment we will then compare the rate of all 3 groups to see which temperature shows the highest amount consumed. Our first week will be designated towards discovering what the algae concentration per well should be set at, creating our plates and catching our copepods. The following weeks will be designated towards collecting the data previously described and refilling the plates and algae with the numbers we found in week 1. Our final week will be designated towards pooling all of our data from all the weeks and compare what we have found among the 3 groups. Then we will organize our discoveries and present