Does Ocean Acidification Affect the Weight of Shellfish Shells?

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this project was to test whether increasing ocean acidification, which is caused by rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, affects the weight of shellfish shells. Methods/Materials 3 types of local shells. 5 pH levels corresponding to different levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Weight before/after soaking for 4 weeks. 10 replicates of each shell type at each pH level. Results For both crab shells and sand dollars, as pH levels decreased (and acidity levels increased), shell weight generally decreased. I set up my test on assorted shells incorrectly so my results for them did not follow the same pattern. Conclusions/Discussion My results from crab shells and sand dollars confirmed my hypothesis, that as ocean acidification increases, shell weight decreases. For the assorted shells I got quite varied results, that did not match my hypothesis. This is because I did not evenly distribute shell types within each pH level. Doing this project raised my awareness that ocean acidification is a growing problem facing marine life around the world. This short experiment shows that we need to investigate the impact of climate change on marine species, and we need to work to protect marine ecosystem health.

Competition history

• CSEF 2017 Toxicology · Entry J2219

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Biomedical and Health Sciences projects
• CSEF Biomedical and Health Sciences projects
• Every CSEF 2017 project