How Does Duckweed Affect The Growth Rate Of Lemna Minor?

Lemna minor, more commonly known as duckweed, is a tiny and free-floating plant found in still ponds. Lemna grows up to three leaves from a single root, and grow in very more massive and dense colonies. Duckweed replicates very fast, and can almost double its mass in about 24 hours (S.N.Xiu et al, 2010). In our experiment, the causal question was what affects the growth rate of Lemna minor. The hypothesis was that water quality or nutrient availability would affect the growth rate of Lemna minor. The prediction was that water enriched with nutrients would have a higher growth rate than water without enrichment. The rationale behind this is that water fortified with nutrients will provide the Lemna with more bio-available food, which is required …show more content…
The raw data was not showing that the number of leaves in each jar did not gradually increase. Therefore, the amount of nutrient-enriched that presently show the averages of each group, and it did steadily increase with the amount of nutrient. However, the nutrient is going from an average of 1.600 leaves to 0.108 leaves as nutrient-enriched, meaning the nutrient did positively affect how the duckweed grew. Moreover, tells us that our hypothesis was supported, as we stated that the enriched nutrient would affect the growth rate of the duckweed. This may be because of the added water river and the enriched. The water river was not enough to drastically improve the growth rate, and we don’t begin to see drastic changes until the jars with higher nutrient content are looked at. However, when looking at the jars with high nutrient, we see a spike in growth, in contrast, the jars with low to no nutrient. The pots with low nutrients are likely the nutrient uses the algae, and when it is excreted, the nutrients with waste are in a usable form for the Lemna minor to absorb, thus improving the growth rate. Raw data shows that the jars with only nutrient water show some of the highest leaf contents, though logically the jars with no nutrient explain the low number. Averages supported, our raw data was flawed due to many experimental errors made. Errors included things such as the temperature, which was not controlled in the area the jars were stored in. Heat could have affected the Lemna minor because they could have died leaves from being too hot. As well, as seen in a previous study, with water level dropping in increases population density and could thus decrease growth rate (Driver, Nes, & Roijackers, 2004). Finally, in the greenhouse, the jars were a label to know the level of water because the water will display with