The Effects of Different Chemicals on Sea Grass Microbial Communities in Winogradsky Columns

Overview

Objectives/Goals Sea grasses are one of the most important parts of the ocean ecosystem, providing both shelter and nutrients to all marine life. These sea grasses are also home to a community of microbes which work and interact with the sea grasses. This project, which is partnered with the UC Davis Seagrass Microbiome Project at Bodega Bay, tests how different chemicals would affect the seagrass microbial communities,specifically that of the species Zostera Marina. The effects of different chemicals will be tested with winogradsky columns and the number of colors that result in the columns. The hypothesis is that if the additional chemicals are added to the columns, the number of colors will increase in the winogradsky columns over time because the chemicals will encourage growth of certain microbes. Methods/Materials Winogradsky columns were used to test the effects of the chemicals since they allow a clear visual way to culture microorganisms with different metabolism strategies. The mixture inside the columns has chemicals that contain elements like carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur. The experimental columns will have the additional ammonium acetate, elemental sulfur, and seagrass. A control was also added without any additional chemicals. These columns were tested starting in October 2014 using water around seagrass beds to obtain the seagrass microbes. Results The results show that the seagrass columns had less microbial growth than the ammonium acetate and elemental sulfur columns since seagrass columns only had 1.6 average colors compared to 5.2 and 6.6 average colors of the sulfur and ammonium columns respectively in March. It was observed that the total number of colors increased and many of the microbe populations changed over time in the columns. The columns are still providing more data and experiment is currently being developed to provide new types of data. Conclusions/Discussion There was evidence to support the hypothesis since the averages of the number of colors in the experimental columns were generally higher than the control columns average of 2.8 colors. However, sources of error from the subjective color counting method and other human measuring error and blunders are sources of error in the project. Overall, researching the effects of chemicals on seagrass microbiomes greatly contributes to our understanding of crucial seagrass communities.

Competition history

• CSEF 2015 Environmental Science · Entry S1106

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

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

Browse more like this

• All Environmental Analysis projects
• CSEF Environmental Analysis projects
• Every CSEF 2015 project