Association for Biology Laboratory Education

Habitat Preferences of Artemia franciscana
 

Maggie Haag, Louise McBain, & Bill Glider

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2007, Volume 28

Abstract

Artemia franciscana (brine shrimp) inhabit saline lakes and temporary ponds. Nauplii larvae hatch from resting eggs in the spring. The response of a mobile animal, such as Artemia, to variation in a single environmental factor is often investigated through the use of a habitat preference experiment. In this experiment, Artemia will be exposed to wide range of habitats or intensities of a single factor (e.g. temperature, light, pH), given sufficient time to select a given habitat, and then sampled to determine the preferred condition. The experiment will attempt to answer if Artemia is indifferent to the factor under study or does it actively select a specific condition and what is the preferred condition. This exercise is used to re-enforce hypothesis testing and the use of chi square goodness of fit statistical test.

Keywords:  brine shrimp, statistical analysis, habitat choice

Purdue University (2006)