Seneca Lake Lab

Research Question: How does the depth of Seneca lake effect the amount of life?

Controlled Variables: The type of tests we take, the time we take the tests will be pretty much the same ( same season, same day, same weather conditions, etc. )

Independent Variable: The depth of the water

Relevant Variables: We must make sure that the tests are conducted as similarly as possible. The level of pollution, temperature, season, are all relevant variables

Background Info: Seneca Lake is the deepest of all the Finger Lakes in New York State, reaching up to depths of 618 feet.  Seneca Lake is the geographic center of all the Finger Lakes as well, with the town of Geneva on Northern tip and Watkins Glen on the Southern end of the lake.  Seneca Lake's water is maintains a fairly moderate temperature throughout the year, the water has high levels of dissolved oxygen, allowing for all types of life throughout various depths.  The water supports numerous types of fish, some of which are Lake Trout, Smallmouth Bass, and Yellow Perch.  Plant life also thrives, with pondweeds, waterweeds, plantain, stoneworts and muskgrass being prevalent in the water and on the shores of the lake.  In-text Citation.

Hypothesis: Evidence of life will be consistent throughout all depths of the lake, while life low on the food pyramid will be at the higher depths while the tertiary consumers will most likely be at lower depths.  

Methods to Control Variables: I want to measure turbidity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and pH levels at all depths.  Taking all the same tests at all locations, even multiple trials of the tests at all three locations would all go to further eliminate human error and control variables.

Procedures:

Dissolved Oxygen:

1. Gather the dissolved oxygen kit.
2. To the LaMotte sample bottle, add 8 drops of the manganese(II) sulfate solution (bottle 4167) followed by 8 drops of the alkaline potassium iodide azide solution (bottle 7166).Some water may drip off the sides.
3. Carefully cap the bottle, mix by gently inverting - then allow the orange-brown precipitate that has formed to settle below the shoulder of the bottle (about 3-4 minutes).
4. Using the 1 gram spoon provided in the kit (0697), add one level spoonful of sulfamic acid (bottle 6286) to the solution in your LaMotte sample bottle. Cap the bottle and mix until both the reagent (white crystals) and precipitate (brown crystals) have completely dissolved and you obtain a clear brown-yellow solution.
5. Pour this clear brown-yellow solution from the LaMotte bottle into the titration tube and fill it up to the 20 ml line.
6. Use the plastic eye-dropper provided in the kit, add 8 drops of the starch solution to the titration tube. At this point, the solution should change color to a bluish-green.
7. Fill the Direct Reading Titrator (0337) up to the 0 mark [looks like a syringe, marked 0-10 ppm] with the sodium thiosulfate solution (bottle 4169).
8. Insert the titrator you just filled through the small hole in the cap of the titration tube and titrate the solution slowly. Swirl the titration tube until the blue color of the solution disappears permanently with one drop of titrant (i.e., you are looking for a color progression from green-blue to blue to light blue to colorless). You may have to fill the titrator more than once. Be sure to record how much titrant you used before refilling. The direct reading titrator is calibrated in units of parts per million (ppm) dissolved oxygen, therefore, be sure to record all of these units.

Temperature:

1. Use the Ship's onboard "CTD" to gather temperature measurements.

Turbidity:

1. Take Cup that has Secchi Disk on it and slowly lower it into the lake until it disappears. Record the height at which it disappeared.
2. Pull the Secchi Disk back up until it can be seen again record that.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2, 3 more times, and collect average of the three trials

pH Testing:

1. Fill up a vial with lake water
2. ASAP after getting water sample turn the pH meter on
3. Remove the cap to expose the glass bead
4. Pour at least an inch of water into a beaker rinsed with lake water
5. Place the pH meter in the beaker
6. Let the number on the readout stabilize for 5-10 seconds
7. Read the pH number and record it.

Final Questions: How good is this food going to be?

Also - what are the possible implications of whatever results we may find while on our excursion to Seneca Lake?

How I Impact The Carbon Cycle

• I ride in vehicles, that emit CO2
• I play three sports in which I preform cellular respiration at an accelerated rate
• I live
• I eat
• I use electricity
• I use paper, which contributes to deforestation
• I breathe
• I use charcoal which is a form of carbon
• Cotton clothes also use carbon based polyesters
• I use plastics which is synthetically altered carbon 

My Home Biome

Seahorses live in tropical or temperate seagrass beds, coral reefs, mangroves, and estuaries across the Atlantic from Nova Scotia to South America.  In coral reefs, seahorses live in typically tropic or subtropic oceans, in shallow areas of water.  Seahorses live in a coral reef, so they live amongst corals, and small animals such as plankton, and coralline algae is common amongst most coral reefs.  Plankton are tiny animals that live in warm shallow waters, the revolutionary advantage that keeps plankton alive is that they reproduce faster then they can be consumed by predators.  Coral are plant-like animals, they stay in one place, they eat plankton and get some of their energy from the Sun.  Coralline algae grows on the Coral and other parts of Coral Reefs, as the water is warm and receives a high amount of sunlight.  The biggest issue facing coral reefs is that coral reefs are dying; overfishing, pollution, and coral mining are causes of the decay of coral reefs.  General protection of coral reefs will help prevent their decay and death, this would entail limiting the amount of pollution entering the reefs, and the prevention of overfishing.  Seahorses do not seem to have a specific niche, they are secondary consumers who eat small animals, seahorses' main purpose in life is just to reproduce.  Seahorses are interesting in that the males will receive an egg from a female where it is fertilized and incubated in a pouch on the male seahorse.  The general food web of seahorses is something like what is shown in the following image

Tuna are known to eat seahorses during the times of year when food is scarce and seahorses are easily preyed on as they are not strong swimmers and lack natural defenses.  There does not appear to be a niche overlap, just predation of a species.

Works Cited:

"Seahorse Facts." Seahorse Facts. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2015.

"Basic Facts About Coral Reefs." Defenders of Wildlife. N.p., 01 May 2012. Web. 18 Oct. 2015.

"Ecological Niche." Lined Seahorse. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2015.

"Seahorse Predators." Seahorse Facts and Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2015. 

Furnace Brook Lab Report

Hey! Totally check out my sick lab report.  It took me like 5 hours.  Why does anyone do IB?

Biomagnification Case Study

Biomagnification is the concentration of toxins (such as DDT) in an organism that is a result of accumulation and concentration of it ingesting plants or animals where the toxins are more widely dispersed.  The level of toxins will become more concentrated the higher level the organism is.  The top predators in a food chain will have the highest concentration of toxins.  DDT was initially made and used to be a insecticide to help prevent the spread of: malaria, typhus, as well as other insect-borne diseases in civilian and military populations.
This toxin is spread through the food chain very easily.  The insects will ingest DDT through producers such as plants.  The DDT will be stored in fat cells and next level predators will eat the insects, and thus eat the DDT as well; which will also be stored in their fat cells.  This will result in a higher concentration of DDT in the secondary consumer, as they will be eating more food with DDT in it.  Then the tertiary consumers will eat the secondary consumers, and will result in an even higher level of DDT.  An example of this is as follows: DDT is sprayed in a marsh to control the mosquito population.  This will cause trace amounts of DDT to be stored in plankton, filter-feeders such as clams and some fish will eat the plankton causing an increase in the concentration of DDT.  Then, predators such as gulls will prey on the filter-feeders.  Since then the world governments have largely stopped using DDT all together.  The World Health Organization (WHO) in September, 2006 declared its support of using  DDT indoors in African countries in which malaria is a major health problem.  Regardless, DDT is largely unused today, as it poses a serious risk to both the health of ecosystems and humans.




"DDT - A Brief History and Status." EPA. United States Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2015.


"Biomagnification: How DDT Becomes Concentrated as It Passes through a Food Chain." Biomagnification. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2015.