Population Dynamics of Daphnia Magna in Artificially, Fertilized Aquarium Ecosystems, and The Implications on Higher Tropic Levels

The replicates in this experiment were very similar (see tables 1 and 2).  The least amount of replicate deviation was found in the background parameters which did not diverge more than a few units for each parameter (see table 1).  The differences between replicates in the phosphorous, chlorophyll-a and Daphnia population levels did vary slightly more than the background parameters, but not by any extensive amount that would suggest our results could be systematically flawed.  The most significant deviation was in the high fertilized Daphnia population counts.  The huge differences found in the total Daphnia population counts in the high fertilizer treatments could be alleviated with more precise enumeration measures.  Much of the counts made were estimation made from back-calculations as the Daphnia density was too high to count due to time constraints.  If I were to design and implement the study I would count each Daphnia by hand rather than using back-calculations despite the time consumptive nature of some of the population sizes with fertilizer treatments.  In the future more replicates may reduce the variability observed in the fertilizer response variables.