Biomass
Many factors contribute to the diversity of life in an environment. Theavailability of nutrients and sunlight, along with other factors that play apivotal role in determining what and how much life an area can sustain. While studying the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it came to my attentionthat the classical pyramid shape of the producer, C1, C2, C3, biomass pyramiddid little to take into account the amount of detrital input. I hypothesized that the amount detrital input greatly effected the number of C1, C2, and C3consumers and thus the overall biodiversity of an ecosystem. Further, if youcould find a test-bed where detrital input was the only real difference betweentwo similar ecosystems you would find that organisms of each ecosystemwould be adapted to the peculiar conditions. This adaptation would lead youto find vast differences in the taxonomic groups associated with each With this in mind, I first set out to find two similar ecosystems were Icould test this hypothesis. Second, to sample, categorize and compare thediversity of these ecosystems along taxonomic lines. Next, I planned to useseveral of the widely accepted diversity indexes (Simpson’s Index, Shannon&#
The first is to simply countthe number of species present in each of the two creeks and compare theresults. Alazan creek hada Shannon’s Index of 1876. In order to test the detrital baseas the limiting factor, all other limiting agents must be eliminated. Scientific Law states that in order to test the effects of one factor in anequation you must eliminate all other factors . ) It is likewise ten to fifteen feet wide but, isconsiderably deeper at four to eight feet than Alazan creek. The following week each lab examined the specimen jars one by oneand separated the contents by taxonomic groups. 005)Discussion The evidence collected in our study significantly proves the hypothesis. In a fieldexperiment this is technically impossible; though it is possible to come close bychoosing two ecosystems that are very similar. There were three main sources of potential errors in this experiment. Alazan and Bernaldo creek provided just the type of test-bedneeded for this experiment. The smaller and morecontained the ecosystem the less chance for outside input that could destroyour results. Had these species/groupsbeen represented some of the statistics might have been a little different. The equation for this is:t = (H1 - H2) / SdThe “t” value for the above was 3. (Cox) In this case Bernaldo creek had a Simpson’s Index of . A second part of countingspecies is to determine the evenness of the the creeks.
Common topics in this essay:
River Bernaldo,
P005 Discussion,
Rose Bengal,
Alazan Bernaldo,
Angelina River,
C2 C3,
Shannon’s Index,
Scientific Law,
Simpson’s Index,
H1 H2,
bernaldo creek,
alazan creek,
detrital input,
simpson’s index,
detrital base,
amount detrital,
shannon’s index,
typical east texas,
alazan bernaldo,
similar ecosystems,
collection jars,
creek detrital base,
accepted diversity indexes,
diversity bernaldo creek,
fifteen feet wide,
|
Acceptance Essays
