Effect of Different Fertilizers on Eutrophication

The aim of this experiment is to determine how nutrients in fertilizers affect the risk of eutrophication. My research question is: “How does different types of fertilizers influence the replication rate of Chlorella vulgaris?” Chlorella vulgaris is a microscopic alga that is found in fresh water. In order to observe this indicator, a counting method was used. Algae samples were administered with ammonium nitrate, diammonium phosphate, and compound fertilizers with 3 milligrams of a fertilizer in each sample, except for the control group. At the end of six days under ample light, samples (0.004 ml) were counted with a hemocytometer. ANOVA way applied to figure output whether therefore is a significant difference between mean values of algae number due to exposition to different fertilizers. The p-value was found to be 1.35E-9, which was smaller than the alpha value (0.05) therefore significant difference is proved. The results show that compound fertilizer has the greatest effect and ammonium nitrate has the least. The order in which the magnitude of their effects increases suggests that as the fertilizer contains a larger selection of nutrients, its effectiveness as well as the threat it poses to the nature in the context of eutrophication. In this experiment, compound fertilizer was found to be the most damaging fertilizer to the lake ecosystems. There was a control group in the experiment that shows how Chlorella vulgaris fares in plain water and if the fertilizers were in fact beneficial to their growth. There were on average 7350 cells per millilitre so all the fertilizers indeed improved the cell numbers