What did we find?
What we learned in this experiment:
- Synechococcus grows better in media with low nutrients.
- Concentration of nutrients in media did not significantly affect
Synechococcus morphology.
- There is a hint of the effect of grazer filtrate on Synechococcus
morphology, but it is not significant enough to draw definite
conclusions.
Further study on this topic may include examining the relationship between changes in morphology and presence of protist grazer by altering factors such as predator species, Synechococcus isolate, experimental container, temperature, and nutrient concentration.
How can this affect future studies?
Learning more about how this picocyanobacterium interacts with its environment and with other species in culture could open doors into learning how microbial interactions occur in the ocean.
Literature Cited
Pomeroy, L., Williams, P., Azam, F., & Hobbie, J. (2007). The microbial loop. Oceanography, 20(2), 28-33.