This project was conducted by Dr. Chris Freeman alongside several other scientists in the Indian River Lagoon on the western coast of Florida. The project involved exposing pvc panels over a 5 month time period to 9 differing sites within IRL in order to collect suspension feeders. Metadata will be provided separately for privacy purposes.
Suspension feeders were accumulated on panels in the study site.
Two species of algae were cultured - Picocyano (cyanobacteria) & Pedinophyte (chlorophyte), both of which were added to buckets of suspension feeders on panels.
Both algal cell species were labelled with stable isotopes C13 and N15 to detect for removal after 180min time period of exposure.
Flow cytometry data is explained by proportion of final cell counts from original / 1 mL
-- Hypothesis and preliminary results showing that algal cell removal is
increased over time with exposure to suspension feeders, especially in
exposure to those panels with the higher biodiversity and increased diversity
of community composition. -- Inverse Simpson's Diversity Index calculated among panels & correlated in
linear regression with algal cell removal for both species of algae.
-- Significant positive correlation (R-squared = 0.47, 0.17) in both models
showing higher diversity is correlated directly with more algal cell removal. -- Community composition related in biodiversity - analyze diversity metrics
among phyla/ alternate taxa in each panel and effects?
-- Several explanatory models could be created here with differing variables. -- Examining removal of algal cells over time, variance between the two algal
species as well as among each panel.
-- Boxplots describing species, taxa, and site breakdown of Pedino and Pico
enrichment values.
-- PCA of each algae species to determine key sites - Include species richness and evenness, panel diversity, and algal cell
removal over time. This project is broken down into three main pieces of analysis.
-- The first portion is flow cytometry analysis of algal cell removal over
a 3 hour time period with two species of algae and all site panels in order
to best understand which panels are most efficient at removing algal cells
and why.
- All analysis for flow cytometry can be found in Frannie's Scripts and
Frannie's Graphs.
-- The second portion of the project is an analysis of Isotopic Enrichment
data at the species level as well as site and taxa as well in order to gain
knowledge of diversity function and individual portfolio effects.
- All of the Isotopic Analysis can be found in Lexie's Scripts and Lexie's
Graphs folders.
- It is suggested to review all of the required libraries in the
IRL_Isotope.Rmd and download any missing libraries prior to running the file.
- Specific instructions to download the PriceTools library can also be found
in Lexie's Scripts (pending use of it in final project, only preliminary
use as of yet)
-- The third portion of this project is an analysis of the community panel
compositions. This can be found in Lexie's Script's. -- It has been requested we keep the data for this experiment confidential.
If for peer review purposes you would like to request it please contact the
repository owners.We would like to acknowledge Dr. Chris Freeman for sharing his data and project with us as well as Dr. Dan McGlinn for aiding the R programming analysis of this data.