Population growth of Lemna minor

Writing assignment - Due Friday, March 9, 2007 in class

Use 12 point New Times Roman font, with double spacing and 1 inch margins. For the literature cited section only, use single space hanging format.

Title of Study:

Include the dependent variable, independent variable, and organism studied.

Results:

Please see the "Communicating Ecology" handout for greater detail on how to write a results section. In brief, the results section is a narrative presentation of the essential features of your data and the outcome(s) of your experiment. The results section should contain:

  1. A narrative description of the results, without any interpretation, and
  2. Figures (graphs) or tables that illustrate the narrative.

Graphs to include:

  1. N vs. t for all four treatments (Low-4, Low-15, High-4, High-15)
  2. ln N vs. t for all four treatments.
  3. The slope of the line through the points for each treatment approximates r, the rate of growth per capita
  4. Note that we cannot calculate K from our data since our populations did not approach K

Discussion:

Please see the "Communicating Ecology" handout for greater detail on how to write a discussion section. In brief, your results require interpretation and this is done in the discussion. Here you use your results (referring back to specific tables and figures as necessary) to build a logical argument for your interpretation. Compare your results to results of published studies. Speculate as to what is causing the variation in population growth and r in each treatment.

Literature cited:

Provide a literature cited list in APA format. Only include those references that you directly cite in the paper. Never include internet sources.

Below is the class average (of 4 groups).

Nutrient, Plant # / Day 0 / Day 7 / Day 14
Low, 4 / 4 / 11 / 16
High, 4 / 4 / 10 / 23
Low, 15 / 15 / 25 / 43
High, 15 / 15 / 35 / 66

LEMNA RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

NAME:______

BREAKDOWN OF MISTAKES BY SECTION POINTS

TITLE

_____ Independent Variable ____ Dependent Variable ____ Organism (Latin name)

_____ Concise and well-written /4

RESULTS

_____ Data presentation correct (appropriate figures, format, axes labelled, etc.)

_____ All tables and figures referred to in text

_____ Results of analyses of data

_____ States trends in the data accurately and concisely

_____ Do not include raw data!

_____ No interpretation of data included /10

DISCUSSION

_____ Interpretation of results (discussion of r, etc.)

_____ Draws conclusions

_____ Connection of results to hypothesis(es) and other studies

_____ Sources of error/reliability of results

_____ Additional experiments/hypothesis(es)

_____ Discusses implications or significance of experiments

_____ Well organized and informative /10

LITERATURECITED

_____ Proper Format_____ Cite all sources

_____ Use of sources when appropriate /6

GRAMMAR/SPELLING and ORGANIZATION

_____ Sentences well constructed and logical

_____ Typos

_____ Spelling

_____ “Data” is plural

_____ Proper format

_____Scientific name underlined or italicized

_____Genus name capitalized and species name in lower case /5

TOTAL SCORE /35