Net Primary Productivity Lab

Collaborators: Jp Best, Taylor Cielo, Madion Carter

Introduction:
Primary Productivity is known as the measure of how much photosynthesis a community
or ecosystem undergoes over a certain amount of time. This deals with the transfer of
energy through an ecosystem at different trophic/food chain levels. The total amount of
energy accumulated in the ecosystem is called the Gross Primary Productivity (GPP), the
amount of energy actually used is measured in/called by Net Primary Productivity (NPP).
This is a good measurement of not only biodiversity but also how much energy is taken
in. The question asked in this lab is the NPP of fescue grass grown in class.
Problem:
What is the NPP of radish seeds?
Hypothesis:
If radish seeds are grown for 27 days in a plot area of 180 cm2, dried out, and the weight
is recorded, then the NPP of the radish seeds will be .0003 g/cm2/day.
Parts of the Experiment:
There were no independent, dependent, or control groups for this experiment because it
was an observational experiment. However, there were some factors that may have
affected the result of the different groups such as amount of sunlight exposure, type of
seed, and the amount of water used.
Materials & methods:
Choose some of the best sprouts from your LD50 lab.
Mass the seeds

Record the mass of the seeds and the number you plant
Plant the seeds and take care of them for a few weeks.
Measure the area of your plot of soil in cm2
Carefully pull the plants out of the soil
Measure the mass & record
Allow the plants to dry out for a couple days
Measure the mass
Data:

Conclusion:
The results of this experiment did justify the hypothesis. The class average net primary
productivity of the radish seeds was calculated to be 0.00024691 g/cm2/day. The NPP of
the actual plants was .00450886 g/plant/day.
There are many factors that can affect the NPP of producers. The first factor is that the
artificial environment that the radish samples were exposed to man not have effectively
represented how actual radishes grow. In order to achieve accurate results, the radish
samples may have had to be placed outside in their natural environment for them to
effectively grow. This would allow the samples to receive an adequate amount of sunlight
and experience natural occurrences like thunderstorms and windstorms. Another factor

that can affect the NPP of producers is the amount of water received. When watering the
samples, each group was allowed to use as much or as little water as they pleased. If a
group overwatered their radishes, the plants could have drowned and if the radishes were
under watered, they could have died from lack of water. These multiple factors could
have led to inaccurate data or data that was slightly off.
Overall, net primary productivity is an important indicator of the health of an
ecosystem. An ecosystem with an abundance of vegetation has a high net primary
productivity which leads to high levels of biodiversity. This means that that ecosystem
can support a huge amount of species since it can provide a sufficient amount of energy
to organisms of each trophic level. Also, ecosystems with a lot of vegetation and high net
primary productivity helps mitigate the effects of global warming due to the burning of
fossil fuels. When plants undergo photosynthesis, they use sunlight to convert carbon
dioxide from the air and water into oxygen and glucose. Therefore, ecosystems with high
net primary productivity remove a large amount of carbon dioxide from the air,
converting it into oxygen and energy to support other organisms. This mitigates the
effects of global warming. Net primary productivity is not only important to the health of
an ecosystem, but also to the health of the rest of the world.
Citations:
Thorpe, Gary S. "Unit II: The Living World." Barron's AP Environmental Science.
Hauppauge, NY: Barron's, 2013. 181. Print.

"Net Primary Production." UC Davis. Information Center for the Environment, n.d. Web.
02 Oct. 2014. <http://ice.ucdavis.edu/waf/model/indicator/net-primary-production>.