Seed Romoval

Abstract

Why do seeds disperse to form new plants? If the seeds simply fell and grew beneath the parent plants they would be too overcrowded and would be starved of nutrients. So it is important that the seeds are dispersed over a wide area where they stand a better chance of finding the right condition to grow. In this experiment I predicted that the red color of jello would have the highest mean number of seeds removed from the aluminum tin pan. Also, between site 1 and site 2 of jello set out, site 1 would have a higher total number of seeds removed. Basically, for this lab we placed ten oat seeds in five different colors of jello: red, yellow, orange, blue, and green which were molded into an aluminum tin pan. We also had two controls in which there was no jello. We placed the tin pans out onto two experimental sites. For a period of seven days, a group member would go out to the sites (approximately the same time of day) and replace the seeds in each tin pan and dispose of the old seeds away from the sites. The number of seeds removed from each tin pan was recorded. A chi-square test was calculated from our data and a p-value of 0.75 was determined. Results show that the highest mean number of seed removal came from the tin pans with the jello colors of blue and green. Red being the second lowest mean number of seeds removed. Also, site two had the higher total number of seeds removed compared to site one. The calculated p-value of 0.75 indicated that our data was statistically insignificant. There could have been many factors influencing our results since we are dealing with nature.

Introduction

Flowering plants reproduce themselves by producing seeds. The seeds also provide the plants with a way to spread out and grow in new places, sometimes a long way from the parent. This is important because if the seeds are not dispersed, many germinating seedlings will grow very close to the parent plant. This results in competition between every one of the seedlings as well as with the parent plant. The competition is for light, space, water and nutrients. All of these are important for plants to be able to grow. (3) Seeds can be dispersed in a number of different ways. They may be carried by wind, water or animals. Thus, the reasons why we are calling this experiment as "seed removal" not "seed predation". In this experiment we used five different colors of jello as our medium to place the oat seeds in. I hypothesized that the medium that contained the red jello will have the most seeds removed from it because of its high wavelength value, which is most visible to birds. (2) We placed the tin pans in two locations, one with bushes/trees around it and the other in open flat land. I also hypothesized that the location with bushes/trees around it will have more seeds removed from the jello because of predation living nearby in the bushes/trees. The animals wouldn't have to go far from their home to find food.

Methods

The general methods of this experiment were taken from the Laboratory Manual for General Ecology written by Richard Mack and Alan Black. The overall experimental design was devised by our group. We obtained twelve aluminum weighing pans and molded jello into ten of the pans. We used five different colors: red, yellow, orange, green, and blue. There were two replicates for each color and two controls in which there were no jello. We used oat seeds; ten seeds in each aluminum pan. The seeds were "probed" into the jello in random locations spaced as equally apart as we could. The aluminum weighing pans were then placed and secured directly onto the ground with thin wires at the experimental sites. We placed the pans into two sites, each site having one color of jello and one control. Each pan was approximately placed five feet from one another and each site approximately fifteen feet from one another. The first site had a little slope and a couple bushes/trees surrounding it. The second site was more open and had a flatter ground. The tin pans were observed for seven days. Each day, a group member went out to the sites (approximately the same time of day) and replaced the seeds while collecting the "old" seeds and disposing them away from the sites. Also, the number of seeds removed from each tin pan was recorded. After the seven days of observation, using the data collected, a chi-square test was calculated and a critical value was determined.

Results

Our results clearly show that there