Brandon Johnson-Douglas
Community Ecology: Data Analysis

During this lab, we performed tests to figure out the zooplankton population in the 6 ponds outside of the Hall of Sciences. We retrieved zooplankton by extracting them from each pond, and afterwards, began to count the creatures and categorizing them by physical appearance and from here they were extracted from, tests similar to scientists that we read about in Lab. We learned how to calculate the absolute and relative abundance.

This is the absolute abundance of zooplankton in “With fish” vs. “Without fish” ponds. There is a higher absolute abundance in the ponds that contain fish in them.

Relative abundance of zooplankton of different sizes in “With fish” vs. “Without fish” ponds. Here, the with fish ponds have a higher relative abundance of zooplankton that are less than 0.5mm in length whereas in the ponds without them, there are more of every other size.

Absolute abundance of zooplankton from ponds 2 and 4 in 2013 vs. 2014. Here, the abundance due to loss of fish is higher in 2014, than the absolute abundance was in 2013.

Relative abundance of Copepods vs. Cladocerans from ponds 2 and 4 in 2013 vs. 2014. Here, there were more Cladocerans in 2013 than Copepods whereas there were more copeopods in 2014.

Through this lab, my lab group and I were able to find out the absolute abundance of zooplankton in the different ponds. It was higher in those that contained fish because the