Which Species of Mold is Most Successful in Transplanting Itself into a New Environment By Beau Leveringand Taylor Yates

Mold is a eukaryotic type of fungi. It uses spores as a means of reproduction. These spores are extremely resilient. Once landing on a suitable environment, it plants itself and begins to feed and grow off of its host. Some types of Fungi included yeast, mold, and mushrooms. Introduction

Our Experiment Rationale: We are learning about mold growth Purpose: We are trying to find out which species of mold will be most successful in transplanting themselves from one environment to the next. Goal: We hope to successfully transplant different species of mold from cheese, tomato sauce, bread, and cottage cheese into a different food medium

Experimental Design IV: Type of mold DV: Amount of mold growth on new environment Constants: medium: spaghetti sauce daily watering

Process We will grow mold on 4 different foods; cottage cheese, tomato sauce, cheese, and bread. After enough mold growth has occurred, we will transplant as many types of mold into a plastic container next to tomato sauce. We will then allow the mold time to spread from its original food onto the tomato sauce.

Types of Foods We Grow Our Molds On (Before Growth) Tomato sauce Cottage Cheese Cheese Bread

Food with Mold Growth Tomato SauceCottage Cheese CheeseBread

Analysis of Growth Tomato Sauce: Variation of molds, but barely. Penicilum has almost entirely overrun the tray. To put this in perspective, when water is placed on the tray, its simply runs off the Penicilium. Cottage Cheese: Penicillium growth exclusively. Dutch Cheese: No mold growth. Bread: Light Penicillium growth.

Results We Identified 2 types of mold; Penicillium and Aspergillus. This is the growth after four days after transplant. AspergillusPenicillium As you can see, there is Penicillium in our Aspergillus tray, partially this is due to lack of a method for sterile technique. However, the Penicillium had overrun almost all of the other molds in the sample we collected from (spaghetti sauce), which is why Aspergillus is the only other mold we have.

Analysis of Transplants (conclusion) Aspergillus: Quickly grows, but fragile. Cannot survive when competing with Penicillium for space. Penicillium: Grows slower than Aspergillus, but when it begins to produce spores, will easily take over a habitat with 1-3 days.