Central Academy of Technology and Arts - IED 106 Virtual Lab: Population Biology P

Central Academy of Technology and Arts - IED 106

Virtual Lab: Population Biology

P. aurelia grown alone, cells/mL        P. caudatum grown alone, cells/mL   P. aurelia grown in mixed culture, cells/ mL         P caudatum grown in mixed culture, cells/mL

Day 0   8          8          8          8

Day 2   64        64        56        40

Day 4   216      112      128      80

Day 6   180      100      128      80

Day 8   188      116      156      56

Day 10 392      240      360      40

Day 12 400      240      188      8

Day 14 400      240      200      0

Day 16 400      240      200      0

Journal

1. What are the objectives for this experiment? (you can summarize)

2. Make a hypothesis about how you think the two species of Paramecium will grow alone and how they will grow when they are grown together. I think that the species grown alone will be more successful 3. Explain how you tested your hypothesis.

4. On what day did the Paramecium caudatum population reach the carrying capacity of the environment when it was grown alone? How do you know?

5. On what day did the Paramecium aurelia population reach the carrying capacity of the environment? How do you know?

6. Explain the differences in the population growth patterns of the two Paramecium species. What does this tell you about how Paramecium aurelia uses available resources?

7. Describe what happened when the Paramecium populations were mixed in the same test tube. Do the results support the principle of competitive exclusion?

8. Explain how this experiment demonstrates that no two species can occupy the same niche.