26th Annual Student Research Conference
Maternal effect and Population Dynamics for Paramecium Aurelia
Justin J. Baraboo
Dr. Peter Rolnick (Retired), Faculty Mentor
When in a resource abundant environment, organisms allocate extra resources towards reproduction quality by increasing the number of offspring or the endowment for the offspring. The maternal effect, a correlation between the quality of a "mother"s environment and the quality of her "daughters", was investigated. This dependence on previous environmental quality may explain fundamental ecological concepts. Paramecium Aurelia cultures were subject to food constraints, a healthy 100% hay-and-wheat-seed medium solution and a strained 10% solution, to change the quality of their environment. Paramecia from these environments were then moved to both a healthy and a strained medium and allowed to grow. From previous experiments, the carrying capacity and maximum growth rates were determined, and the parameters of the maternal effect model were determined. The growth rates of the resulting populations were analyzed using statistical methods and the maternal effect model. Differences in growth rates were not found.
Keywords: Maternal Effect, Inertial Growth, environmental effect, population modeling, Paramecium Aurelia, Physics Capstone
Topic(s):Physics
Statistics
Biology
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 206-4
Location: MG 1096
Time: 10:15