Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi!
This feature is really neat! I just had a question on one of the project ideas, "Invasive Species." I have been mulling around and tried to think of a few experiments. All I have thought of is making an enclosed ecosystem and introducing an invasive species. Can any of you guys suggest me a few experiments to do relating my topic? I have several months to complete the experiment. Thanks!

The problem of invasive species altering an ecosystem is a great area of research but most such studies require years rather than months. As in any science project you must start with a hypothesis. What would yours be? Creating a controlled ecosystem is a good research technique but so is using existing environmental data such as ocean temperature changes or dissolved carbon dioxide levels along with species surveys.

Are you interested in aquatic or land ecosystems? Plants or animals? Please post again with some questions you might want to ask about species encroachment and we will try to help you design experiments to get answers within your time frame. You can also do a project using existing environmental data stretching over years to test some hypotheses.

Sybee

Hi! Thanks for the response! I'm still thinking about my hypothesis, but I am thinking about my topic a bit more. I want to introduce a invasive plant into a closed Eco system, I would research more on the time needed. You also mentioned using environmental data, can you elaborate more on that? Thanks!

I was thinking of temperature data in specific geographical regions on land or in oceans. For example, there are puffin colonies up where I live in Maine and the numbers of birds have declined as the water temperature of the ocean where they fish has increased. Different species of fish have been able to invade the ocean around the puffins' nesting sites because it is warmer and they have been eating the herring that the puffins used to feed to their chicks which then die of starvation: http://blog.nwf.org/2013/06/climate-cha ... r-puffins/

In the past century the average growing season in parts of the eastern U.S. has increased by two weeks because of higher temperatures (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... 180947630/). This has allowed invasive plants and insects to move into new territory further north than ever. Depending on where you live you might be able to show how a particular insect or plant has become invasive because of the progressive increase in temperature.

Performing an experiment to show the effects of an invasive species on an ecosystem will be difficult in the limited time you have to do a science project. You might be able to use algae or plankton that grow quickly and respond to changes in their environment to show what happens when they invade an area, but I'm not sure what you would measure as a dependent variable.

Post again and we will try to help you define a hypothesis and design some experiments to test it.

Sybee

Thanks! Data seems like a better idea than mine, and I will research more about it before asking again. Thank you!

Hello! I've been researching it, and decided to go more with your suggestion. I will try to research how temperature or global warming can effect invasive species or other environments. I looked more on building a closed ecosystem, but found it took too much resources and time. Do you think a good question is, How does temperature and global warming effect invasive species and environments? I found many sources for this topic. Thanks!

But I don't know a good experiment for this.

Hi,

Good that you are tackling this very important question now. Compiling a verifiable data set over as long a period as you can is a great science project. Your hypothesis could be something like:

Increasing environmental temperatures over [some number of years] promotes invasion of [whatever organisms, plant or animal, that you choose] into [a certain land or ocean ecosystem].

Or, if you want to look at a phenomenon you could make a hypothesis that says something like:

Increasing average temperatures [in a certain period] results in reduction [or increase] in [some measurable phenomenon like number of chicks produced in a bird colony or population numbers of certain insects like butterflies]

Remember that you can also do vertical ecosystems in the mountains where you look at data about changes in a species range or appearance or behavior over a certain range of altitudes over a number of years because of warming. Animals like pikas are very sensitive to heat and populations will plummet if annual temperatures rise too much too soon: https://www.earthtouchnews.com/conserva ... k-rabbits/


This is where the work comes in. You will have to decide on a certain area of the world to focus on, either land or water, and there has to be reliable temperature data for this area going back as many years as possible--the more the better. Land ecosystems seem to be more susceptible to temperature fluctuations--extremes of high and low temp's--as well as increases in average monthly temperatures.

What you need to do for a project is to determine if there is a correlation between the temperature data in a specific area and some measurable event which may or may not involve an invasive species.

I know this sounds difficult so here are some examples I found on the web to get you thinking along these lines:

1. Butterfly ranges in Massachusetts, USA, are shifting because of increasing average temperatures.
https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/gr ... utterflies

2. Invasion of European earthworm species across North America attributed to global warming
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep06890

3. Will climate change make invasions even worse?
http://datanuggets.org/wp-content/uploa ... dent-A.pdf

4. Plants have unexpected responses to temperature changes.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/08/ ... ate-change

5. Effects of increased water temp on fish feeding and behavior
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/cgi/vi ... ontext=jur


You can find many more examples of the effects of climate change on plants or animals, so you have to decide what interests you and if you can get access to temperature and species data. For example, I know Atlantic ocean temperatures are available through the NOAA Centers for Environmental Information: https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/cwtg/
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/

NOAA is also involved with the archiving of land temperatures so they would be a good place to start looking if you choose a land-based project.

The hardest part, I think, will be getting access to species data. You'll have to do a lot of searching online and see what's available. Remember you can always call a research university in your area and ask them how to get data on a certain species. Scientists are always glad to help young students do projects in their field.

Hopefully there are some experts on this forum with more experience in ecology research than I have so they can help with suggestions on where you can get species data.

Good luck!

Sybee

Hi! I have an a experiment idea I want to test out, which is what is the effect different types of soil have on invasive species in Arizona. I have the materials to do it, but I can not find any good research sites specifically related to the affect different types of soil have on invasive species. Can you help me with this or suggest a few?

Please keep your related posts together in the same thread so the experts who have been helping you will see that you have new questions. Thank you.

Moderator