Tes Cherian

Isabel Gray

BIOL 1120L

Comparing Biodiversity Within Two Water Samples

Introduction

Biodiversity is a broad word that is typically defined as the assortment of organisms

within systems that include terrestrial, marine, and aquatic types and also the diversity found

within species, between species, and in ecosystems (United Nations Environment Programme

1992). Biodiversity encompasses three types of diversity, species, genetic, and ecosystem, to

properly measure the amount of diversity in the area of study. Since species diversity is the

easiest to evaluate, that is what we focused on. Species diversity is composed of species richness,

how many species are in the community, and species evenness, the ratio of individuals in the

community to the species (Bell et al. 2015).

For this experiment we are looking at plankton communities in river wetland and river

channel samples to determine which would possess a higher amount of biodiversity. We

hypothesized that the river channel would have more biodiversity due to the movement of water

which allows for species to migrate, unlike the stagnant river wetland.

Materials and Methods

To begin the experiment, we formulated a hypothesis to test. Testing the hypothesis

included acquiring four samples of the river wetland water and four of the river channel water.

We split the eight samples into two of the wetland and two of the channel for each of us. Each

sample was treated with Protoslo so assessing the slides would be uncomplicated. The slides we

used were ruled, so when put under the microscope we were able to focus on four squares of our

choosing. In those squares, we determined what species of plankton were present and proceeded
to count the number of individuals of each species. After completing this on one slide, we moved

to the next one to repeat the procedure. When the counting on both slides had been completed,

we moved from the wetland samples onto the channel samples. In the same manner we evaluated

the wetland samples, we evaluated the channel samples.

Finishing this, I retrieved the lab data that my partner collected and added her findings to

mine. Totaling up number of individuals in each sample gave us the ​N​ variable we needed to

begin working through inserting our data into the Shannon Diversity Index to calculate the

relative value of species richness and evenness of each ecosystem. Following the equation, we

tabulated the H value of both ecosystems which allows us to properly compare both of them on

an even scale.

Results

The compiled data of the individuals within the species was inserted into the Shannon

Diversity Index to achieve the respective H-values found in Table 1. From the table, the river

wetland is shown to have a lesser H-value than the value found for the river channel.

Table 1. The H-values found for each sample of the plankton community.

Community Type H-value

River Wetland 0.920

River Channel 1.126

Discussion

This experiment started off with the question of whether river wetlands or river channels

housed more biodiversity. Our hypothesis stated that we believed the sample of river channel

water would have a greater amount of plankton biodiversity than the river wetland sample. We
believed this would be possible because the motion of the river channel water allow for the

introduction of more species than would be introduced into the stagnant water of the river

wetland. The H-values we tabulated from each sample supported our hypothesis as the river

channel water had the higher H-value. The data we recovered from the experiment is further

supported by evidence that claims in experimental communities, it was found that higher levels

of species density and richness was present when the water flow was enhanced (Palardy and

Witman 2010). This scenario is comparable to the stagnant water of river wetlands versus the

flowing water of river channels.

For future replications of this experiment, there are many factors that could be altered to

gain more precise data. In the experiment it was difficult to keep count of motile plankton which

could turn into a large error in data collection. It may not be ideal, but perhaps having dead

plankton may make the process less obstructed for students. This is only one of the several

changes that could be made for accuracy's sake.

 References

Bell, Rebekah, Jennifer Boyd, Linda Collins, Hope Klug, Meredith Montgomery and Charles
Nelson. 2015. ​Investigations in Biology Laboratory Manual, ​3rd ed. Plymouth: Hayden-McNeil
Publishing.
Palardy, James E and Jon D. Witman. 2010. Water flow drives biodiversity by mediating rarity
in marine benthic communities. ​Ecology Letters​ 14(2011): 63-68. Accessed April 7, 2017.
United Nations Environment Programme. 1992. ​Convention on biological diversity, June 1992​.
Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme, Environmental Law, and Institutions
Programme Activity Centre. Accessed April 7, 2017.