Brine Shirmp Lab Blog

Evolution—Brine Shrimp Lab

Question: In what environment can brine shrimp eggs be hatched more easily and quickly?

Hypothesis: Brine shrimps can be hatched in solutions with high concentration of salt.

Procedure

1.     Prepare 5 different solutions with 0%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2% of salt concentrations

2.     Put roughly 30 eggs on the plate and count the number of eggs under the microscope

3.     Put the plates into solutions

4.     Count the number of eggs and live shrimps after 24 hours

5.     Take out the live shrimps

6.     Count the number of eggs and live shrimps again after 48 hours

Observation:

In 0% solution, no eggs were hatched. The 0.5% solution has the highest hatching viability and the number goes down after 0.5% solution until 1.5% solution. The 2% solution has a hatching ability of 40%.

Conclusion

Therefore, it can be concluded that brine shrimps are able to adapt to any type of water environment with salt. This explains the instability of brine shrimp population at Utah. When the water evaporates, the salinity becomes higher in the water, and therefore the eggs were preserved in the water. When there is more rain, the concentration in water goes down and eggs can be hatched.

This experiment shows the organisms’ ability to adapt to the living environment and their methods to survive.