Research question
The experiment was used to investigate the intraspecific and interspecific competition of plants in the same family. The experiment was to show the competition between plants of the same species and plants of different species. The variables included temperatures, light and water. Intraspecific competition occurs between organisms of the same species and since they are likely to have similar resource requirements they are likely to compete for any limited supply. In interspecific this is a complex ecosystem with many different needs competing for resources such as food, space or light.
Hypothesis
Competition among plants involves a struggle for limited resources such as sunlight, water, and nutrients in the soil. Competition is an interaction that is harmful to both individuals involved. Plants better adapted to obtain resources can out-compete other plants and maintain their growth, so plants can be grown in competition without major effects on their growth if they have different individual adaptations. Peas and wheat are in the category of interspecific in which they can relate well to each other in sharing of the nutrients making them dependent on each other.
Variables
Apparatus
- Plastic Pipette
- Potting soil
- Wheat seeds
- Pea seeds
- 5 Petri Dishes
- A full beaker of water
- Ruler (to measure the height of the plant)
Method
Potting soil was placed in all the petri dishes. The perti dishes were laid out and the seed were placed with the first and second petri dish containing wheat and pea seeds. The rest of the petri dishes have the same equal amount of peas and wheat seeds. The plants were then watered with the plastic pipette with six times to water one of the petri dishes and this was repeated with all the petri dishes. The plants were watered regularly. All plants were located next to each other so as to get the same light with a room temperature of 22 degrees. The plants were observed to see how they germinated.
Data collection
Data analysis
According to the data collected in the experiment the relationship between the pea seeds from the same environment show an average height of 2.0cm. The relationship between the wheat seeds and the pea seeds are from the other petri dishes show that through their interspecific environment just a few did not receive the required nutrients. In the fifth petri dish the high number leads to many more of them not survive with lack of nutrients.
Conclusion
Competition among plants involves a struggle for limited resources such as sunlight, water, and nutrients in the soil. In the experiment the intraspecific and interspecific competition is quite clear. The first two petri dishes contained which included the peas and the wheat show consistency in growth and they all survive in the intraspecific environment. On the other three dishes which had the same equal number of pea seeds and wheat seeds most of those that germinated did not survive. This is because they were in the interspecific environment and had to survive leading to many of the plants not germinate.
In the petri dish one and two containing only pea seeds and wheat seeds with 12 seeds well germinated. Without competing for nutrients they germinated with the nutrients provided. In petri dish 3 the pea seeds well adapted more than the wheat seeds with a total of 16 remaining seeds that germinated. In petri dish 4 with a total of 40 seeds and only 32 seeds that germinated with 17 pea seeds germinated and 15 wheat seeds germinating. On petri dish 5 the seeds planted were 60 with only 49 seeds germinating.
Evaluation
Competition among plants can also be termed as an environmental interaction. This experiment has shown that the risks of growing wheat and peas even from the same familia will still compete for nutrients. The number of peas in the germinating in petri dish 3, 4 and 5 shows clearly how plans correlate or interact in the same environment. This is well seen on petri dish 5 in which 60 seeds were placed together with 30 pea seeds and 30 wheat seeds and only 49 were well germinated. This shows the interdependency of plants to each other and also shows how important nutrients are in consideration of the fact that 11 of the seeds did not germinate.
