1. Male or Hermaphrodite? Introduction:
Killer Instinct: -Wesley -Kelsey -Marquis
Mentor
-Sharon Klavins
Introduction:
- In class we were learning about ferns. Something
that we didn’t fully understand became our question.
we knew that the hermaphrodite spores caused the others to
be males, but we didn’t know if there would be more or less males for the number of hermaphrodites. Thus the experiment was created to help us fully understand.
Procedure: 1. We will gather our materials. 2. We will put the agar in each petri dish. (we will have two dishes of each size) 3. Then we will put two drops of fern spores in the specified area. 4. Then we will put the lids on each of the six dishes. 5. We will count up the original number of spores in each dish and record our data. 6. We will put them all in the bag with the moist paper. 7. We will count up the number of spores that actually germinated. 8. We will count up the number of male and female spores. We ill record our data.
Question:
-Dose the concentration of spores determine is they will be male of hermaphrodites?
Conclusion:
- We have come to a conclusion that our hypothesis was not supported. We thought that if there was more space for the spores to grow there would be more hermaphrodites and less males. Looking over our data show that the small dish averaged and the large dish averaged the exact same (male 57% and hermaphrodite 43%) and the medium dish is roughly the same (male 65% and hermaphrodite 35%). It shows, in our data, that space the spores have to grow in doesn't affect if what sex the spores will be.
Hypothesis:
- In the smaller area there will be more males than females. in the medium are will have around the same amount of males and females. In the largest amount there will be more females than males. We think this because the females let off the hormone that causes the surrounding spores to be male. If they are closer the more males because they are close to the female but the further away, the more females because they are spread out more.
Materials:
8ml Agar (x6)
Petri Dishes (x6)
70% Isopropanol (Undefined)
Paper towels (Undefined)
Sharpie (x1)
Paper Clip (x1)
Pipet (x1)
Fern Spores (Roughly 12 drops)
-Ceratopteris Richardii
Plant Stand (x1)
Dissecting Microscope (x1)
Ziploc Bag (x1)(Sandwich size)
Light Microscope (x1-x2)
More Info:
-This project is on to find our project page look up Killer Instinct.
Fern Data, Percentages
Dishes
Sex
Small 1
Small 2
Medium 1
Medium 2
Large 1
Large 2
Males
Hermaphrodites
Percentages
76%
24%
29%
71%
65%
35%
66%
34%
43%
57%
Small Dishes
Medium Dishes
Large Dishes
Average Percentages