Draft 1a Environmental Effects on Fish Population in Miami Creeks

This topic submitted by Grace Marta Amanda Kristen at 12:00 am on 10/5/01. Additions were last made on Friday, April 19, 2002. Section: Cummins

Environment Effects on Fish Population in Miami Creeks

Introduction

For our semester research project we plan to study the effects that human urbanization has on fish populations. Our project will be localized since we will be conductin tests in two creeks, Collins Run and Harkers Run, which wind through Miami's campus. The main question we will be testing is "how does the environment around the creek affect the fish populations?" We believe that the more human urbanization there is present near the creek, the smaller and less diverse the fish population will be. We decided to research this topic after going on the creek walk up to the Bluffs. We quickly realized that we all enjoyed walking through the creek and the serene setting the creek provided. We are also interested in the chance to learn how we affect the natural environment hope to find ways that we can prevent human damage through urbanization. We also hope to find correlations between our research results and results obtained in other international research. In working towards this goal we plan to answer the specific questions of "do different types of human establishments have different effects?" and "does human urbanization affect the growth of algae and if so does the growth of algae then affect fish population?". We believe these questions will help us in drawing conclusions which will help us solve our main problem. In the end we believe this project will help us achieve a greater appreciation for the environment we live in here at Miami,as well as at home, now and in our future.

Relevance of our Research Question

We found three ideas on which correlate with our study in an article on the internet. On the variable of algae: an abundance of nutrients in natural waters and excessive blooms of algae that release their toxic biproducts can destroy fish and other aquatic life if not controlled. This idea is important since we are going to try to find a tie between human land use and the growth of algae. For the topic of outside influences we found the idea: natural population can be affected by outide souces. This can be seen as deviation from normality: but we don't usually know what the normal conditions are like. Natural population can fluctuate by month, season, and year. These fluctuations can be dramatic and result from normal changes in climate and environment. These facts show how we must keep track of the weather since it may affect our results. We also found an idea concerning the protection of the environment. This idea is: the route of environmental exposure that presents the greatest risk is called the "critical path". Sometimes a critical path can be identified that leads to a population of organisms that is more at risk. That population is called the "critical group". When we protect the "critical group", other organisms will be protected. We can use this information as we determine ways to help protect the groups that we find which may be at risk in the future. These three ideas were paraphrased from the article "Environmental Toxicology and Ecotoxicology" found at http://www.bio.hw.ac.uk/edintox/enviro.htm. We also found a similar study that highschoolers in Maryland did which is similar to our project in the fact that they built models of streams to see "long term changes in a stream due to land use" at http://www.nehs.org/pages/streamproject.shtml#Project%20Description. This project will help us as we attempt to refine the steps we will take in our project. We also found projects that were similar to our project in previous years in natural systems such as "The effect of landscape on streams and their behavior as corridors" and "Erosion on the creek banks (the mudslides)." Our research relates to the larger question of "how well do humans need to monitor their land use around the world?" We hope to contribute the knowledge of how much our land use affects aquatic life, even in a small communtiy such as Oxford. This information may then be combined with other studies to expand our knowledge of the interactions between humans and the environment.

Materials and Methods

The first step in our experiment is to go out and find three places in each creek (one at the beginning, one near the middle, and one near where the creeks merge) which are all very similar in temperature, water current, water depth, and creek width. With the creek areas acting as our constant variable we will be able to focus more on the variable of human land use. After we choose our testing sites we plan to make maps of the areas surrounding the creeks. These maps will allow us to compare the urbanization around the creeks and be a good visual aid for those looking at our results. We have set up an appointment with Dr. McCullum to discuss using her shocking technique to count the total number of fish and the different species of fish in each part of the creeks. We will use the shocking technique in each area and take down the data. This is the data that we will use in our statistical analysis in statview. In our testing we won't be taking some factors such as pollution (due to lack of chemical testing ability), light and shade (since the lighting will change during the day this won't make a difference), or other animal influence (because it would be nearly impossible to track all nearby animal life). Below is the data table that we will be using during our experiment.

Data Sheet

We believe that our data will be statistically sound because all of the numbers that will be added will be in equal units. We won't know for sure if this belief is true until after all our data is collected though. We are making sure that most of the environmental factors, such as temperature, depth, width, water current, and length, are constant in an attempt to eliminate all biases. To make sure the classes data is trustworthy we will put the students in groups of more than one person for each task and compare their numbers to our own results to make sure there is a clear correlation. We believe our collection methods will be adequately shown since the class will go through all of the steps that we utilized in our experiment.

The "fish shocker" will be our most important tool since it is necessary in order to count and classify the different types of fish living in each area. In our attempt to make sure that all testing areas are similar we will use a thermometer to check water temperature, and a meterstick to measure the stream's length, width, and depth. We will also be using a ping pong ball, string, and stopwatch to test the water's velocity by timing how long it takes the ping pong ball to float down the stream from one point marked by string to another point marked by string. Througout our testing we will also be utilizing maps of the area surrounding both creeks to determine the amount of urbanization and its proximity to the creeks. An important tool we will be using is a book of freshwater fish species as a reference to classify the different types of fish.

In the student generated lab the students will follow the same steps we followed each time we gathered data. We will chose the two testing areas closest to the merge point of the two creeks to conduct our lab. After dividing the students into groups of two or three we will give half of the class the tasks of checking the creek area for our "similar factors" (temperature, water current, water depth, area width, area length) and the other half to classify and count the fish after shocking them. This will be done first at one creek, then we will move the entire class the the other stream to repeat the process with the tasks for each half of the class reversed. After we have collected all the data we will discuss our findings and ask what the students believe these findings tell us. We won't be asking the students to process any data because they won't be testing all six sites. We will simply check to make sure their results correlate with ours.

October 6th - we will collect maps of the creek area and search for similar sections to test.
October 8th - we will meet with Dr. McCullum about the shocking technique and set up dates to use the equipment
October 13th,20th,and 27th - we will meet and hopefully be able to test the 6 different areas we have chosen (weather and equipment permitting)

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