Elodea

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Effect of Saltwater (NaCl) on the Production of CO2 in an Elodea Plant Julieta Medina-Rosas Marissa Aguilera, Jenine Hamed, Jessenia Torres Biology 1441 Sec 038; Professor Holmes; October 3, 2014 Elodea grows in freshwater and in this experiment the plant will be placed in a saltwater environment to test the efficiency or deficiency of photosynthesis and aerobic respiration. One of the plants was placed in a 75 mL diH2O solution while the other plant was placed in a 75 mL saltwater solution. There were two other beakers, one with 75 mL diH2O and the other with 75 mL saltwater, with no plants which would serve as the controls in this experiment. Each of the solutions were placed under a light source for one hour. The results indicated that…show more content…
The control had a total number of 15 drops of NaOH added into its solution. The experimental beaker had a total of 10 NaOH drops added into its solution. In order to find out the amount of CO2 that was produced or consumed by the diH2O, the experimental solution must be subtracted from the control solution. In this case, 10 drops would be subtracted from 15, and the difference between the experimental and control solutions of diH2O is five drops of NaOH. The table in the lab manual on page 36 is imperative for the next step. The chart shows the conversion of NaOH to CO2 in mL. Since the difference of NaOH drops in the two solutions of diH2O was five drops, 0.23 mL of CO2 was gained. When CO2 is gained we can assume that the aerobic respiration was more effective rather than the photosynthesis process (UCSB Science…show more content…
In this specific experiment some possible errors could have been that the number of NaOH drops was miscounted, the solutions may have been different shades of pink, or there could have been an overall overuse of the NaOH solution. This experiment does not imply that the same amount of CO2 is consumed by all Elodea plants in a saltwater environment. Further investigations must be ran, including more trials for this experiment, in order to compare a trend in the production or consumption of CO2 of Elodea plants in diH2O and in saltwater. References Fung L.E., Wang S.S., Altman A, Hutterman A. 1997. Effect of NaCl on growth, photosynthesis, ion and water relations of four popular genotypes. 107(1-3); Reece J, Urry L, Cain M, Wasserman S, Minorsky P, Jackson R. 2013. Campbell Biology. 10. Pearson Education, Inc.1488 p. UCSB Science Line. How are respiration and photosynthesis related? scienceline.edu [Internet]; [cited 2014 October 3]. Available from: http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=153 Walsh MJ, Wostl RL. 2013. Biology 1441: cell and molecular biology laboratory

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