This week’s lab report focuses on how temperature affects the growth of corals. Read pages 184-185 in your lab manual for more background information.
After reading, create an excel file with the data in the lab manual for the four treatment temperatures: 26°C, 28°C, 30°C, and 26-30°C fluctuation. Proofread the data you enter to avoid typos.
Calculate the averages, standard deviations, sample sizes, and standard errors for each temperature treatment (1pt). Make a graph of the treatment means that includes custom error bars, descriptive axis-titles, and no gridlines or chart title (2pt).
Then, please answer the following questions in a textbox in your spreadsheet next to your data/graph:
- Prior to analyzing the data, which temperature treatment do you hypothesize will have the most coral growth and why? (1pt)
- Interpret your graph. Which temperature treatments had the most/least growth? Which were significantly different from each other? Did the data support your hypothesis? (5 pts)
- Remember that the average water temperature of the coral’s natural habitat was 28 °C. What does your data suggest would happen if climate change were to cause the average water temperature to increase to 30°C? (2 pts)
