Glow and Grow: The Effects of Phosphates on Dinoflagellates

Overview

The project question was how do varying levels of phosphates affect the population density of bioluminescent dinoflagellates. It was hypothesized that if the different levels of phosphates affect the population density of bioluminescent dinoflagellates, then the highest concentration of phosphates will decrease their population density the most because the increase in phosphates creates algae blooms which will decompose causing oxygen depletion. Dinoflagellates require oxygen for life processes and without it, their population density will decline. The question was tested by adding three different levels of phosphates to dinoflagellate cultures and testing how their population density and bioluminescence changed over a period of time. The results showed that the low level of phosphates maintained the highest population density. My hypothesis was refuted because I thought that the high level of phosphates would cause the greatest decline in population density. However, the control ended up having the lowest population density and the low level of phosphates maintained the highest population density. This could have occurred because the dinoflagellates had some extra nutrients from the phosphates to help boost the population, while not having too many which would cause the population to crash. If I were to do this experiment again, I would have had multiple cultures for data confidence and tested more independent variables like adding different levels of microplastics into the populations.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Microbiology (Junior Division) · Entry J-16-16

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