If Current Human Development Does Not Change, Will Groundwater Sustainability Be Affected?

Date:Belinda Payne

Assignment: SCE211 Phase 5 Lab Report

Title: Identifying Environmental Hazards

Purpose

The aim of the experiment is to determine the effects of introducing an invasive species in an ecosystem.

Introduction

When an invasive species is introduced in an ecosystem, it will exhibit population explosion due to the minimal environmental resistance to its population in the new ecosystem. This may be in the form of decline in the number of predators or increase in resources. Lack of immediate regulation to its population by environmental constraints may also cause population explosion.

Hypothesis/ Predicted guess

The population of the Zebra and Quagga mussel increases for the first few periods of observation whereas the population of the phytoplankton and the zooplankton decrease. After sometime, the population decreases while those of the phytoplankton and the zooplankton increase.

Method

- Collect a given number of the zebra and Quagga mussel species.

- Identify a source of fresh water such as a fishpond and observe the types and population of the different plant and animal species in the water.

- Introduce the collected zebra and quagga mussel into the water.

- Make your observations of the change in population of the each species in the water after a given duration for a given period.

Results

Years |Zebra and Quagga Mussel (density/m2) |Phytoplankton (µg/ml) |Zooplankton (µg/ml) |Cladophora Biomass (g/m2) |Foraging Fish (kilotons) |Lake Trout (kilotons) | |0 |100 |3 |2 |10 |150 |15 | |3 |1000 |2.5 |1 |100 |100 |10 | |7 |2500 |2 |0.5 |200 |80 |8 | |10 |7500 |1.5 |0.25 |600 |50 |5 | |13 |15000 |1 |0.1 |700 |25 |2.5 | |15 |7500 |1.5 |0.2 |243 |40 |4 | |20 |5000 |1.75 |0.4 |136 |60 |6 | |

Discussion/ Analysis

The population of the invasive species increases rapidly during the first years of observation due to factors such as increment in resources such as phytoplankton which...