Luksika Wisitthipakdeekul (Gam)

Napat Parapat (Nam)

Suwida Saelim (Sern)

Kittikhom Wannapak (Pong)

Kewalin Sirirattanaprasert (Fah)

December 4, 2015

Section 11-05

Experiment 1: Survivorship Curve Experiment

Abstract:

This experiment consists of three populations and every population needs 50 bubbles.

First population is prevented from burst by blowing them and time when each population

pop. Second population is left them flow, time and collect the data. Last population is timed

only when they pass the red line. After the data is collected and graphs are made, we can see

the different death rate of each population. Different shape of survivorship curve is caused by

different conditions. Population one is correlate with survivorship curve type one, while

population two is correlate to survivorship type two and population three is correlate with

survivorship type three.

Object/Purpose:

The purpose of the experiment is to study the soap population that is used as the

model of real organism population and construct different types of survivorship curve in

different conditions. [1]

Introduction:

Population is a group of organisms from the same species, living in the same area, and

relying on the same resources. Different species might have different pattern of survivorship.

The insurance industry created life table to study the survivorship pattern of a population and
then population ecologist adapted life table into the survivorship curve that show the pattern

of mortality rate of a population. In this experiment, the three populations of bubbles mimic

the populations of organism in nature. [4]

There are 3 different types of survivorship curves. The bubble population 1 is

prevented from breaking which can construct a survivorship curve type I. The graph type I

remain constant at first which show that there is low death rate in early age and then drop

dramatically as mortality rate rise in older age. An organism that produces few number of

offspring, but they can provide a good care is the example of organism that also has

survivorship curve type I. On the other hand, the bubbles population 3 have to cross the red

line to be counted as survivor. An organism that produce large number of offspring, but they

cannot provide enough good care will have high mortality rate at early age and decrease

when they are older. A graph type III decrease rapidly at first and then the line will slightly

become straight line. Another bubble population is population 2 that are broken naturally. The

population 2 may construct another type of survivorship curve which is type II. There is

constant mortality rate throughout the life time. [4]

Materials:

1. Soap

2. Straw

3. Rulers

4. Stopwatch

5. Calculator

6. Laptop with Microsoft Excel

Procedure:

1. Blow bubbles approximately 50 bubbles each time.

2. For population1, try to keep the bubbles into the air by blowing the bubbles and record

time of each bubbles before it bursts.

3. For population2, do nothing with the bubbles and record time of each bubbles before ir

bursts.

4. For population3, try to blow the bubbles over the red line. Then, count the number of the

bubbles that cross the line after blowing 1sec. and record time of each bubbles.

Data/Results:
 Figure1: In this type of population, we try to keep the bubbles stay alive in the air as

long as possible by using the paper to blow the bubble up into the air. This line graph

shows the survivorship of bubble population1. In this graph, it relates to survivorship curve

type I which means this type of population produces a few number of fertile offspring and

have a good care of their children, and then mortality rate rapidly increases, so the graph is

showed as convex curve [2] .

Figure2: After we blow the bubbles, we do nothing with the bubbles and see how many

bubbles die in this experiment. This relates to the survivorship curve type II which means

the mortality rate of this population declines constantly. [2]

Calculations:

Soap Bubble Population Data: Population One

Age at Death Percent of Tally each Total Total Percent

(second) maximum Bubble that Number Number Surviving to

life span Dies Dying at this Surviving at this Age

(X-axis) Age this Age (Y-axis)

0 0 - - 50 100%
1 4.167 | 1 49 98%
2 8.33 | 1 48 96%
3 12.50 | 1 47 94%
4 16.67 | 1 46 92%
5 20.83 || 2 44 88%
6 25.00 |||| 4 40 80%
7 29.167 |||| 4 36 72%
8 33.33 ||| 3 33 66%
9 37.50 - - 33 66%
10 41.67 - - 33 66%
11 45.83 |||| 4 29 58%
12 50.00 |||| 4 25 50%
13 54.167 |||| 5 20 40%
14 58.33 |||| 5 15 30%
15 62.50 |||| | 6 9 18%
16 66.67 - - 9 18%
17 70.83 - - 9 18%
18 75.00 |||| ||| 8 1 2%
19 79.167 - - 1 2%
20 80.33 - - 1 2%
21 87.50 - - 1 2%
22 91.67 - - 1 2%
23 95.83 - - 1 2%
24 100.00 | 1 0 0%
 Soap Bubble Population Data: Population Two
Age at Death Percent of Tally each Total Total Percent

(second) maximum Bubble that Number Number Surviving to

life span Dies Dying at this Surviving at this Age

(X-axis) Age this Age (Y-axis)

0 0 - - 50 100%

1 3.85 || 2 48 96%
2 7.69 |||| 5 43 86%
3 11.54 |||| 5 38 76%
4 15.38 |||| 5 33 66%
5 19.23 |||| 5 28 56%
6 23.08 |||| 4 24 48%
7 26.92 |||| 4 20 40%
8 30.77 |||| 4 16 32%
9 34.62 ||| 3 13 26%
10 38.46 | 1 12 24%
11 42.31 - - 12 24%
12 46.15 - - 12 24%
13 50.00 || 2 10 20%
14 53.85 | 1 9 18%
15 57.69 | 1 8 16%
16 61.54 | 1 7 14%
17 65.38 - - 7 14%
18 69.23 || 2 5 10%
19 73.08 - - 5 10%
20 76.92 | 1 4 8%
21 80.77 || 2 2 4%
22 84.62 - - 2 4%
23 88.46 - - 2 4%
24 92.31 - - 2 4%
25 96.15 | 1 1 2%
26 100.00 | 1 0 0%

Soap Bubble Population Data: Population Three

Age at Death Percent of Tally each Total Total Percent

(second) maximum Bubble that Number Number Surviving to

 life span Dies Dying at this Surviving at this Age

(X-axis) Age this Age (Y-axis)

0 0 - - 50 100%
1 3.33 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| 32 18 36%

|||| ||
2 6.67 - - 18 36%
3 10.00 ||| 3 15 30%
4 13.33 | 1 14 28%
5 16.67 || 2 12 24%
6 20.00 | 1 11 22%
7 23.33 | 1 10 20%
8 26.67 - - 10 20%
9 30.00 | 1 9 18%
10 33.33 - - 9 18%
11 36.67 | 1 8 16%
12 40.00 - - 8 16%
13 43.33 - - 8 16%
14 46.67 |||| 4 4 8%
15 50.00 ||| 3 1 2%
16 53.33 - - 1 2%
17 56.67 - - 1 2%
18 60.00 - - 1 2%
19 63.33 - - 1 2%
20 66.67 - - 1 2%
21 70.00 - - 1 2%
22 73.33 - - 1 2%
23 76.67 - - 1 2%
24 80.00 - - 1 2%
25 83.33 - - 1 2%
26 86.67 - - 1 2%
27 90.00 - - 1 2%
28 93.33 - - 1 2%
29 96.67 - - 1 2%
30 100.00 | 1 0 0%

Formula:

age at death
Percent of maximum life span (X-axis) = 100
maximum age at death

number surviving
Percentage surviving to this age (Y-axis) = 100
total bubbles blown
Discussion:

Once we finished the experiment, the bubbles population 1 is prevented from

breaking by blowing them into the air, while we do nothing with the bubbles population 2 and

let them break naturally, and the bubbles population 3 will be counted as survivor when they

can pass through the red line. The result form these three populations can be constructed into

three different patterns of survivorship curve. From this experiment, we set different

conditions of bubbles population as the independent variable. There are 3 different conditions

which are breaking prevention, natural burst, and red line crossing. Therefore, the dependent

variable of this experiment is life time and death rate of each bubbles population that lead to

difference in survivorship curve. [1]

First of all, the bubbles population 1 are blown into the air and we keep them float as

long as possible. [1] Some bubbles can be alive longer than the other 2 populations. From the

statistic, the mode of the data from bubble population 1 is 18 seconds. It can mimic the

population that has low mortality rate in early age, and the rate increases when the individuals

of population are older. The bubbles population 1 correlate with the type I. The survivorship

curve type I slightly decreases in the first range of the graph, and then it obviously drops. [4]

The organism that can construct survivorship graph type I always produces few number of

offspring and provide a good care for their children at the beginning of their life, but when

they are grown enough, parenting is not necessary anymore. The offspring of this type of
organism usually has slow growth. The example of organisms with the graph type I also

known as k-selected species such as large mammals (human in developed countries and

animals in zoo.) [3]

Secondly, the bubbles population 2 burst naturally in the air. We do nothing with the

bubbles. [4] The numbers of bubbles die in each second are very similar. The bubbles

population 2 can mimic the real population that has constant death rate through out the life

time and their death rate does not depend on their age. From the data, in second 2 to second 5

and second 6 to second 8 show the constant death rate of the population. This type of

population correlates with the survivorship curve type II. The graph decreases gradually with

the constant rate and it looks like the linear graph. [4] The example of organisms with the

graph type II are rodents, adult birds, and certain turtle species. [3]

Thirdly, the last population is the bubbles population 3. We set the red-line on the

floor where the bubbles have to cross and they will be considered as survival. [1] There are 32

bubbles that die in 1 second, so from the statistic, the mode of the data from bubbles

population 3 is 1. There are few bubbles that can survive until 30 seconds. This population

can mimic the organisms that can produce huge number of fertile offspring, but they cannot

provide enough good care for their children. Therefore, most children die in early age, but the

individuals that did not die will be able to survive until older age. The bubbles population 3

correlate with survivorship curve type III. There is obvious decline at first, and then the graph

slightly become like a straight line which can indicate that mortality rate decrease in older

age. [4] The example of organisms with the survivorship curve type III also know as r-selected

species such as fishes, seeds, and marine larvae. [3]

The different treatments that we set for each bubble populations affect on the shape of

each survivorship curve. Blowing bubble into the air can make the graph become like straight

line at first, while the bubbles population 3 become straight line after obvious decline because
the bubbles in this population have to cross the line to be counted. To contrast, there is no

special treatment with the bubbles population 2, so the shape of its graph is like the linear

graph.

A population that most individuals survive for a long time correlate with the

survivorship graph type I, so each individual will not produce many offspring because they

have to provide a good care for their children such as providing good food resources, good

parental cares. Moreover, at the beginning of survival ship curve type Is, the number of

weak, unfertile, or having a disease organisms will die. This is the benefit because if

organisms which have a good health and they are able to reproduce, the number of organisms

that will be born from them will absolutely not strong and they will be harmful to the

population. If they produce too much offspring, their ability to sustain their children is not

enough. [3]

Suppose a human population exhibit a survivorship curve type III. If there is dramatic

improvement in medical technology, the number of individuals that die in early age will

decrease. As everyone knows that medical technology is a good way to make the human

population stays constant and increases, the medical technology will expand the percent of

maximum life span. Furthermore, the development of technology can be used to see and

predict whether the baby in females ovule is healthy or not. If the baby is not health, the

doctor will be able to abort the baby off or depends on the parents that they want to keep the

baby or not. The mortality rate can also be reduced by the medical technology. The graph will

be a straight line longer than type III. It might change to survivorship curve type I.

Conclusion:

Different conditions effect to the life time of population for the first graph is type one,

second graph is type two and the last one is type three.
References:

[1] Choi, J. Biology Teacher, Advanced Biology, Section 5. (Mahidol University

Demonstration International School: Nakorn Patom, Thailand.). December 2015.

[2] Human Life Table and Survivorship Curves. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.auburn.edu

[3] Rauschert, E. (2010) Survivorship Curves. Nature Education Knowledge. Retrieved from

http://www.nature.com

[4] Reece, J. (2011). Campbell Biology (9th ed., Global ed.). San Francisco: Pearson

Education.