"Planktos," meaning "wanderer," is the Greek word in which the life form, Plankton, came from. Plankton are any drifting organisms (animals, plants, archaea, or bacteria) that inhabit the open seas or open bodies of fresh water. They cannot swim against the current or go against the wind. Currently, there are four basic ways to classify plankton. This is by food, color, lifestyle, and size. The food category is split between two different types of plankton, the photo-synthesizers (phytoplankton), and the heterotrophic (zooplankton). The classification of their color varies from greens to reds, browns, blue-greens, and even golden. Within their lifestyle, they can be classified as either holoplankton and meroplankton. Holoplanktons live their whole lives as a plankton, like algae and jellyfish. Meroplanktons live only part of their life as a plankton, like barnacles and larvae. The size of the plankton is divided into three descriptions. These being the megaplankton, the microplankton, and the ultraplankton. The megaplankton usually stay in the less than two millimeters range, the microplankton in the .06 to .5 millimeters range, and the unltraplankton in the greater than .005 millimeter range.
Question: What is the diversity of plankton in South Maui?
Hypothesis/Predictions: I think that we will find around 200 different types of plankton in South Maui. I think this because there are endless of various types of plankton in the world, and this is how little, or many, I feel we will come across.
Materials:
- Plankton Net
- Vial (s)
- Jars
- Journal
- Pipette
- Microscope
- Slides
- Cover Slips
- ID Book
- Gather materials and head to your area of collecting the plankton
- Record the beach and other specifics like the temp. of the water, salinity, dissolved oxygen, phosphates, nitrates, current/tide/waves, pH, sunlight/time, and the wind.
- Using your plankton net, drag it in the water for a total of three minutes.
- After, take the collection vial located at the bottom of the plankton net and transfer the liquid inside the vial into another container.
- Take your collection back to the lab.
- To test and see the different types of plankton, using a pipette, drop some of your plankton water on a microscope slide, along with a drop of water. Then, cover it with a cover slip.
- Place slide under a microscope and using the different magnitudes, observe the plankton on the slide.
- Count the different species you see.
Data:
- Temperature-20.4 degrees C
- Salinity-26% at 1:20 PM
- Dissolved Oxygen-0
- Phosphates-4
- Nitrates-2
- Current/tide/waves-High tide
- pH-8.09
- Time (Sunlight)-12:50 to 12:56
- Wind-Slightly breezy
In the Lab...
Microscope Procedure:
- Get your materials out. The microscope, slides, cover slips, plankton sample, pipettes, ID book, journal, pencil/pen, and
- With your pipette, collect some plankton sample and squeeze it onto a slide. If needed, use the to slow the plankton down and make them more identifiable. Cover with a cover slip.
- Make sure the microscope's light is on and place the slide onto the microscope.
- Look through the lens to see what needs adjusting. You can use the three different magnifying lenses and the fine and corse knobs on the side. Do so until you see your specimens clearly.
- Record what you see. Draw and label the different types of plankton that you see.
Pro-scope Procedure:
- Get your materials out. The pro-scope, a computer with that software on it, examining dish, plankton samples, journal, pencil/pen, and
- Pull up the software on the computer and plug in the pro-scope.
- For the examining dish, use your pipette to squeeze some plankton sample into the dish. If needed, use the to slow the plankton down and make them more identifiable.
- Making sure the pro-scope and computer are on and working properly, place your dish under the pro-scope. Move it around, even touching the plankton sample, until you get a clear picture of your plankton.
- Record what you see. Draw and label the different types of plankton that you notice. With the pro-scope, you can also take pictures of what you see by clicking the "capture" and "stop capturing" button on the screen (the software on your computer).
Conclusion and Possible Sources of Error:
My question for this plankton experiment was: What is the diversity of plankton in south Maui?. Through this, I have identified about six different plankton species. This was only my identification individually, I am sure the rest of the class found those and more. So looking back on my hypothesis, I see that my estimation was far off. I thought that we were going to find 200 plankton species and I only knew of identifying six. All though I tested this scientifically, there could have been many cases in which something went wrong. The possible sources of error that I could have come across are the mis-identification of the plankton under the microscope or pro-scope, not catching an accurate amount of plankton in the net, not carefully transferring the plankton from the catching flask into a beaker, loosing some of the plankton sample that we caught, and plenty other things.
