NPP Lab

Collaborators: Amber Mitchel, Samantha Smithers, and Maggie

Introduction:
Net primary productivity, or NPP, is the primary measure of biomass accumulation. It is
a measure of global plant growth that is calculated by a measure of estimated photosynthesis
activity. This quantitative information provides a way to study the ecological processes in an
ecosystem and measure the health of an ecosystem. It also helps scientists analyze the factors
that affect the production potential of plants, including climate change, soil moisture, and
resource availability. Moreover, NPP is a measure that can convey the health of an ecosystem
and the effect of human activities on a habitats ability to support life. However, analyzation in
this experiment depends on the obtained NPP of radish seeds. The radish plants were dried prior
to the measurement of the radishes in order to strip them of the water inside. This way the
measurements of the plants would solely be of the biomass for comparison between the original
radish seeds and the radish plants prior to growth. Looking at the big picture and applying this
experiment to a real world situation, a human searching for food to eat would not pick a radish
out of the ground and dry it out. Rather, they would pick the radish from the ground and eat it
with the water inside because we need water for energy and survival. In this lab one can see the
obvious difference in biomass between the radish seeds and plants as the plants became bigger
overtime. Thus, helping people get a greater understanding of what net primary productivity is.
Problem: What is the NPP of radish seeds?
Hypothesis: If radish seeds are planted and watered throughout the course of 27 days, the
average change in mass of the radishes will be less than 2g/cm2/day.
Parts of the Experiment:
- Dependent Variable: the amount of growth of the radish seeds
- Control Variables: the amount of sunlight, the same room temperature and water
- Experimental Group: the radish plants
Materials and Methods:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.

Choose some of the best sprouts from your LD50 lab.

Mass the seeds
Record the mass of the seeds and the number you plant
Plant the seeds and take care of them for a few weeks.
Measure the area of your plot of soil in cm2
Carefully pull the plants out of the soil
Measure the mass & record
Allow the plants to dry out for a couple days
Measure the mass

Data:
Change in Mass of Radishes

number of plants

1.3g

12

1.4g

10

1.1g

10

1.5g

10

0.8g

1.1g

10

1.2g

10

Data Analysis:
1. Area of the soil plot: 180 cm2
2. Numbers of plants: 69
3. Average NPP:
1.2/180= 125/27= 4.63 g/cm2/day
8.4/69/27= .3 g/plant/day
When looking at the data as a whole, there was not a large variation between the change of
mass in radishes. This could be owing to the fact that this experiment is missing multiple
variables that determine variation in the NPP. Once the radish seeds were germinated and
dried, the average calculated biomass was .2 grams. After 27 days of harvesting the seeds,
the biomass of the plants was calculated to be significantly bigger than the mass of the dried
out seeds . Looking at each groups experiment, there was not an outlier, for the change in
biomass increased by 1 gram on average.
Conclusion:
In this experiment, the hypothesis was proven to be correct, the average change in mass
of the radish plants did end up being less than 2 grams. Looking at the data chart one can see
that the average growth of the radishes was either a little less or a little more than 1 gram,
further proving the hypothesis to be correct. The NPP of the radish seeds is 4.63 g/cm2/day
and .3 g/plant/day. This means that at a rate of 4.63g/cm2/day and .3 g/plant/day, carbon is
being incorporated through photosynthesis. Environmental factors that impact the NPP of
plants are the levels of CO2 and H2O available to it for photosynthesis, the amount of solar

energy it receives, the available mineral resources and the air temperature and moisture the
plant is in. In relation to this lab on a global scale, plant growth around the world has decreased
in the past decade. This means plants are taking less carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as
biomass, therefore, leaving more CO2 in the air to reinforce current global warming trends. A
decrease in plant growth can also impact productivity within ecosystems and food chains. With
plants being the producers that provide energy (food) for the consumers, a decrease in their
growth would lower the energy flow of a food chain; therefore, negatively impacting the entire
ecosystem as a whole. Evidence of human influence is everywhere. Land-use patterns are
readily visible from space, and the concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide,
and other trace gases in the atmosphere are increasing as a consequence of human activities.
Humans have an impact on NPP as we use plants directly for food, fuel, fiber or timber. In
terms of the productivity of lands devoted to human activities, such as agricultural land use or
forests that have been cleared with the slash and burn technique, one can see the direct
correlation between plant growth and human activities. In conclusion, net primary productivity
is the amount of energy left after subtracting the respiration of primary producers from the total
amount of energy that is fixed biologically, all of which can be impacted by both environmental
and human factors.
Citations:
Sendax, Anneliese. "Are Plants Around the World Really Dying?" Popular Mechanics.
N.p., 19 Aug. 2010. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a6098/are-plants-around-the-worldreally-dying/>.
Matson, Pamela, and Anne H. Ehrlich. "HUMAN APPROPRIATION OF THE
PRODUCTS OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS." Human Appropriation of the Products of
Photosynthesis. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://dieoff.org/page83.htm>.