1. Effects of Salinity on Corals
A presentation by
Yamily Musa
Caitlin Liston
Amy Muehlmatt
Barbara Kiersz
Isaac Markus
Valeria Diaz

2. Our Questions
How does water salinity affect the symbiosis between the polyps and zooxanthellae?
What is the range of water salinity where polyps can survive and not bleach?
After bleaching has occurred, do the polyps recover?

3. Hypothesis
As the salinity of the water increases, the bleaching of the corals will increase.
When the salinity of the water is over 40ppt, the coral will bleach.
Once the corals have bleached and the salinity of the tank is reduced to 35ppt, the corals will recover.

4. Experimental Design
The polyps will be shocked by increasing the salinity of the tank to 45ppt.
On Monday the polyps did not appear bleached, if this is the case today we will be increasing the salinity by 2ppt.
Once the polyps have bleached, we will then decrease the salinity to 35ppt and measure the amount of time they need to recover.
We will measure the cholorphyll, protein, and zoozanthellae.

5. Data Week 1 Week 2 Zoozanthellae 8.9 x 108 1.7 x 108 Chlorophyll
0.2376g
3.28g
Protein
45mg/g
25.6mg/g
The first week of our experiment the salinity of the tank was recorded at 35ppt and was increased to about 37ppt.
Over that weekend, the salinity rose to about 40ppt.
Last week we increased the salinity to 43 ppt.
This Monday the salinity was recorded at 45ppt, however, no bleaching has occurred yet.