1. Salinity and Coral Bleaching
Group #1
Presentation #2

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?

3. Hypothesis
As the salinity of the water increases, the bleaching of the corals will increase.
When the water salinity reaches an amount of over 40ppt, the coral will bleach.

4. Experiment Protocol
The salinity of the tanks will be gradually increased.
Every week, the tank water salinity will be incremented by 2ppt (parts per thousand).
Every week, the amount of zooxanthellae and chlorophyll will be recorded.
The current salinity of the water in the tank is 37.5ppt. By the end of the experiment, the salinity will be higher than 40ppt.

5. Expected Results
With this experiment, as the salinity of the water increases, we expect to see a gradual coral bleaching until the coral is completely bleached at over 40ppt.
The coral will bleach at over 40ppt because corals can only tolerate a narrow range of water salinity, between 30 and 40ppt.
The amount of zooxanthellae and chlorophyll will decrease as salinity increases.