Outstanding Senior Presentation Award
Jonathan Bates
"Living in Harmony: Photosynthetic Factors and the Role of Chlorella spp. on the Growth Rates of Green Hydra ( Chlorohydra viridissima)"
| My research aimed to investigate the role of Chlorella spp. on the growth rates of green hydra (Chlorohydra viridissima) under varying photosynthetic factors. In addition, I tested to what effect population density has on growth rates of hydra populations. With the use of symbiotic and aposymbiotic hydra I was able to investigate the extent to which these factors had on the growth rates and to what extent Chlorella spp. contributed to it's host in times of food abundance and deprivation. I found that Chlorella spp. are truly beneficical and thus able to dontae their photosynthate in 1) the presence of light and 2) when food is severly limited to the host to the point of starvation. Future research possibilities include studying the photosythate across the entire phylum Cnidaria and further, is what is transferred host species specific or uniform throughout all species? |
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