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The effect of sound on the phytogeography of Algae


Hayden66

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BIOLOGY EE HELP



Question-- The effect of sound(sonotrophism) on the phytogeography of Algae



--Phytogeography --- The geography of flora or plant life; where botany and physical geography overlap.




So with this I want to investigate if sounds have an effect of how dispersed algae is an environment (am looking more into water based environments but algae can grow in any environment) .



There's been a lot of research on noise pollution, and how it would affect animals in wildlife. However, no so much on actual plant life.



Algae itself is known to be autotrophs(primary producers) . Which means they are fundamental to all the food chains in the world. One example---( salamanders eat algae. Small mammals eat salamanders. Big mammals eat small mammals. Then humans can eat the Big mammals) . Obviously they are thousands of other examples with algae.



  • So how dispersed algae is vital to the future of all species (including humans since we basically at the top of the food chain) .
  • As population rises so does the noise pollution.


  • So this question will be answering(holistic judgement i think) whether or not noise pollution is adding to the Global, human destruction of all flora and fauna based on the importance of algae as a primary producer.


- I do realize that i will have to mention the specific type of Algae ( like the genus and species thing). That shouldn't be a problem for me though






What do you think about the question? Any flaws? Something I should keep in mind?

Edited by Hayden66
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It could also be argued that growth of algae is an indicator of water pollution, you know. Algae bloom is usually part of the process of eutrophication caused by excess of nutrients in the water (run-off from fertilizers). I think you should also narrow down your research question, since effects on the plant is a really broad topic are you talking about how sound will affect the photosynthetic activity? Or maybe growth? . You should also define your terms and attempt to explain them.

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Yeah Thanks I didn't consider Eutrophication at all. Fits perfectly with what am doing. As far as the question being broad, yes i could clarify my independent variable (sound), but the word phytogeography is quite critical to the experiment. The way algae grows and how to grow will be an important part of the experiment (as u mentioned growth) but am concerned with the area it encompasses, with varying environments, thus varying wildlife and how all of it is connected.

Basing it solely on growth or photosynthetic activity eliminates the aspect of Global (multi organism) importance.It also makes it just more of a research essay (something the EE guides advised us not to do )

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So you will basically be generating an input of sound (controlled at certain levels) to test for sonotrophism, right? I think it makes sense. In experiments like this one, especially for an EE, it is very important to keep other factors constant (such as insolation, water turbidity, water pH, etc) because all of these could affect the way the plant grows. I really like your topic, I feel like most times plants are not taken very importantly and so it does give it the "global importance" part. In any way, do watch out for the type of algae you are talking about, since different types of algae indicate different things.

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Why would sound affect algae?

You've got to be able to introduce a biological basis for your topic, so if you have a reason why you think sound would affect algae then great, but if not, then I'd think about something where you can at least come up with one reason why X would affect algae. I know next to nothing about algae, except that they can't hear anything. Whether they respond to vibration or not, I have no idea. So you may know a lot more than me (in fact you almost certainly do!) but just make sure that you DO know something and have a decent reason for doing this.

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