Finding The Perfect Home: Microorganism diversity in different areas of a body of water

Abstract

Water quality has a significant impact on microorganism diversity. We compared the water quality of three different areas of the Dolese Youth Park Pond to see if the level of Nitrogen would affect the diversity of microorganisms in each area. We predicted that the more nitrogen present in the water would result in an increase in diversity. Using the Shannon index for each of the areas we compared their diversity and found that the Dolese inlet had more diversity than the other too areas and the outlet had the least diversity.