My partner and I hypothesized that Ada Hayden’s nitrogen and phosphorus levels would be moderate because based on previous labs, we discovered Ada Hayden to be mesotrophic. Therefore, with very little nitrogen and phosphorus the lake would be oligotrophic and higher concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus would make the lake eutrophic; we believe it’s in between. Since our mean chlorophyll a levels from a previous lab at Ada Hayden were 18.26 ug/L (Table 1 in the appendices), we think that there will be a moderate level of phosphorus. According to Guildford and Hecky (2000), chlorophyll a concentrations increase with an increase in total phosphorus. Likewise, phosphorus increases phytoplankton abundance, especially cyanobacteria (Xu et al.
My partner and I hypothesized that Ada Hayden’s nitrogen and phosphorus levels would be moderate because based on previous labs, we discovered Ada Hayden to be mesotrophic. Therefore, with very little nitrogen and phosphorus the lake would be oligotrophic and higher concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus would make the lake eutrophic; we believe it’s in between. Since our mean chlorophyll a levels from a previous lab at Ada Hayden were 18.26 ug/L (Table 1 in the appendices), we think that there will be a moderate level of phosphorus. According to Guildford and Hecky (2000), chlorophyll a concentrations increase with an increase in total phosphorus. Likewise, phosphorus increases phytoplankton abundance, especially cyanobacteria (Xu et al.