Nutrient Concentrations & Plankton - Grade 9 - 12 - 2020 SRS - 2020 SRS

Project Title: Nutrient Concentrations & Plankton
School Name: Watsonville High School
Teacher Name: Satina Ciandro
Student Name: Olivia Gurnee, Luz Lopez, and Joana Rubio
Grade Level: 9 - 12
Project Description: Many communities including Watsonville are heavily involved in commercial agriculture, so issue of agricultural runoff is very worrisome. We wondered how nutrient concentrations, in areas with and without Ulva Intestinalis, affect the species richness and abundance of plankton populations in Elkhorn Slough.
Abstract: 

• The Green Revolution → increased nitrates and phosphates in fertilizers
• Agricultural runoff from nutrient-dense fertilizers causes eutrophication (algae grows and depletes oxygen, which kills aquatic organisms)
• Ulva Intestinalis = Algae that blooms in response to high levels of nutrients in aquatic ecosystems
• Many communities including Watsonville are heavily involved in commercial agriculture, so issue of agricultural runoff is very worrisome
• Testable Question: How do nutrient concentrations, in areas with and without Ulva Intestinalis, affect the species richness and abundance of plankton populations in Elkhorn Slough?
• Species richness: The number of species within a given sample, community, or area
• Species abundance: The number of individuals per species
• Hypothesis: There will be more species richness and diversity of plankton in areas with Ulva Intestinalis. We think this because we believe the plankton will be attracted to areas with more nutrient density.
• Purpose: To raise awareness for issues like agricultural runoff and nutrient pollution.

Atmosphere Protocols: Dissolved Oxygen, Water Temperature, Nitrate
Language:  English

Hi Olivia, Luz, Priscilla, and Joana!
My name is Allison Herreid and I am a PhD student at the University of New Hampshire. I am part of the Water Quality Analysis Lab and I research carbon and nitrogen cycling in lakes and streams.
Interesting research project and great poster! I am also interested in how high levels of nutrients impact how ecosystems function. Your poster is very well organized and I liked the combination of text and pictures. In future presentations, it would be nice to have the font sizes of the numbers on the x and y axes be a bit bigger so they are easier for people to read. 
Your poster mentions that you took DO measurements as well. Could you look to see if there were any relationships between plankton abundance and DO? Great discussion of why you think you got the results that you did and ideas for how you would do things differently in the future. Nice work!

My name is John Haskins. I do water quality research and monitoring at Elkhorn Slough Reserve and have been there since 1998. https://www.elkhornslough.org/profiles/john-haskins/. Great job on a well organized and clear poster. I am also interested in how runoff affects organisms in the slough. I like that you have a map of your locations as well as pictures so people can see the difference for themselves. Its interesting that you got below detection for phosphate. I assume thats what zero means. Were the blank spaces in the graph for nitrate also zeros. A future presentation it would be good to mention that. As the reader I dont know if the samples were not taken or they were zeros. The other thing I might add is more replicates per site. Of course that adds more time and I see you said you were short on time and adding replicates takes longer to analyze but may give you more data to work with to get better results. Overall great job and keep up the good work!

 Hello, my name is Larisa Schelkin, I am a GLOBE Partner, GLOBE GISN member and a proud GLOBE educator (https://www.globe.gov/web/larisa.schelkin/home).  I am a retired petroleum engineer and an engineering R&D specialist. I now work with K-12 educators in a local non-profit Global STEM Education Center (www.globalstemcenter.org) in Massachusetts. I appreciate your interest in this research topic! Yes, as we know nutrient pollution is one of America's most challenging environmental problems (that is unfortunately widespread and also very costly); it caused by excess nitrogen (and phosphorus) in the air and water. Unfortunately, there are many commercial/industrial, etc. (including commercial agricultural) processes causing a lot of environmental problems. As a petroleum engineer in my previous career I was always very much concerned about the environmental issues (starting from the fact that oil and gas production is heavily reliant on a range of waters). I share your concerns about the “agricultural runoff from nutrient-dense fertilizers causing eutrophication” and appreciate you devoted your efforts investigating it further. You have developed a great poster! I like your abstract (a bit unusual format in “bullet points” – but I like it); great research questions, clearly described purpose of your research project and the hypothesis. I like your “step-by-step” description of the methods accompanied by  great pictures/illustrations capturing different stages of your work on this research project. Great graphs! I understand you had a limited time and I too wish you had more time for your research as I am interested to find out if more data might help you to find correlation between Ulva, plankton, and nutrients. I would like to encourage you to continue your environmental research and to continue your active participation in GLOBE! Great job, nicely done!

Hello, my name is Lyndsey Claassen and I’m a grad student studying plankton at Moss Landing Marine Labs. I have been studying marine phytoplankton for six years and have taught many people about various species, so I’m pleased you chose plankton for your study. Your poster is organized very well! I can clearly see why you chose your subject, what your hypothesis was, and the reason this is so important to study. Most importantly, your data is presented clearly in your graphs with your main take-aways listed in bullet points underneath. It's also always a great idea to add a map of your sample locations to orient people to your site, so great work including that. The photos of you in the field are fun, it looks like you had a good time while conducting your reasearch! I see that you did 5 sweeps of a plankton tow, how many meters total was this? Was the tow done only at the surface or did you do a vertical tow?

I like the approach you took using Ulva as an indicator of nutrient density in the area. As you know, plankton need both nitrates and phosphates to grow, so if you weren’t seeing phosphates in your samples, the plankton population growth might have been limited by the phosphate supply. You made some great connections in your discussion while considering the reasons for your results. I especially like that you considered the constantly changing variables of the slough, since it’s so impacted by tides and rains. In the future it would be great to see if seasonality also plays a role on nutrient dispersal, since the slough becomes highly stratified in late summer/early fall. You’ve done a great job presenting your work, thank you for sharing it!