Virtual Lab #3 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Virtual Lab #3 - Assignment Example The two species were grown in the medium separately to determine their growth patterns by counting the number of Paramecium after a given period. The two species were then grown in the same medium to assess the competition for food between themselves and whether the principle of competitive exclusion existed between the species. This was done by counting the number of both Paramecium species in the same environment after the given time interval. On the 8th day Paramecium caudatum attained its maximum capacity of 60 species . The prove for this observation is that the population attained on this day did not increase in the subsequent days (repeated in subsequent days). In fact, the population decreased to 56 cells on 10th day and remained stable until the 16th day when it reached 60 cells again. These observations illustrates that the population attained the maximum that the available food resource can support (carying capacity) because the amount of food available could only support that or fewer number. The population attained on this day was the maximum and did not increase further in the subsequent days of growth (number was repeated), in fact, on the 14th day it decreased to 96 cells and later attained 98 on the 16th day, which illustrates that the population attained the maximum of 98 cells because the amount of food available could only support that number or fewer than that number of cells. The two species exhibited major differences in their growth patterns over the same duration investigated. Growing the species in separate test tubes shows that Paramecium aurelia exhibited almost twice the rate of growth as that of Paramecium caudatum when conditions provided for their growth are the same. This shows that P. aurelia has better capabilities of utilising available resources and overcoming growth limitations like accumulation of toxins than P. caudatum when grown in the same medium or in different environments. Besides,