Let's Play With Data! (Part 2)
How do we know how oysters respond to changes in their environment? In the hatchery, we can place oysters in different conditions, or treatments. During the experiment, we collect information, or data. These data range from measurements of oyster shells to tracking when larvae are released from adult oysters! We can compare data collected from oysters in different treatments to understand how oysters will respond to that change!
In the activity below, you’ll see some of the data we’ve collected from previous experiments, and try your hand at understanding it!
Part 2: How do changes in water temperature and food impact larval release?
Unlike the Pacific oyster, the Olympia oyster doesn’t spawn eggs and sperm! Instead, sperm spawned and eggs are fertilized inside the mom oyster. Baby Olympia oysters grow inside the mom oyster, which is called brooding. After some time, the larvae are released from the mom into the water.
In another experiment, we exposed adult Olympia oysters to different conditions to understand how it may impact larval release. There were two different temperatures (warm and cold), and two different food levels (high and low). Adult oysters were placed in four treatments: warm temperature and high food (dark blue), warm temperature and low food (red), cold temperature and high food (light blue), or cold temperatures and low food (light red). For this experiment, the data we collected were the number of larvae released, and the date when they were released!
The interactive graph below shows the number of larvae released on the y-axis (vertical), and the date they were released on the x-axis (horizontal). Click the square colored boxes in the legend on the right to show or hide the data for each treatment group. To zoom in, click and drag on the graph itself. Do you see differences in when each group released larvae? Did one group release more larvae than the others?
Once you interact with the data, take your best guesses at the questions and see how much you learned!