Hi Team pasta,

I just read your lab report, and thought your findings were really neat! I can also tell that you were careful in carrying out the experiment—great work. I'm not sure whether or not you've already turned in your lab report and have finished with it, but I wanted to share some feedback that I had on it in case you would find that helpful. I also have some follow up questions too for you to reflect on.

Several aspects of this lab report communicate the science that was done really well—it is well organized, written clearly and with concisely, and included some really great pictures of the plants that were studied! There were a few additional details that I think would be nice to include in the lab report. First, including a 1-2 sentence description of the plant species that you are working with in the "Theory" section at the beginning would be nice. Second, it would be great to include how many days (or hours, if relevant) that the plants were grown for before you measured their phenotypes. If someone else were to repeat this experiment solely based off of your report, they would need to know this information to reproduce your results. Finally, it is good practice to have captions on your figures/images. You've included several graphs, tables, and images to illustrate your experimental design and data, which is great. And, if you had captions explaining what each figure demonstrates, and then made explicit references to these figures in the text, readers will get an even better sense of your results.

Some questions:

1. I noticed again that the variation in hypocotyl length differed between your light treatment groups; specifically, there is more variation in hypocotyl length in the blue and green light treatment compared to the control and red light treatment. Why do you think this is—could it be biological, or is it due to how the experiment was carried out?

2. As an ecologist, I like to think about how these results might affect the ecology of wild plants. While land plants experience light in the same way (white light from the sun), I can think of one "biome" where plants might experience light differently. Can you think of any natural examples of plants experiencing a light environment that is different from the control in your experiment?

Again, you all are doing some really great and interesting work. Your lab report looks great, and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these questions!

Hi Tortellini,

Great thinking—I agree that these factors could introduce variation into your results!

I especially think that human error could explain why there is a different amount of variation between treatment groups. For example, if each team member was responsible for measuring hypocotyl length for a different treatment, then the data might be reflect each individual's variation in their measuring. Since it is often expected that the amount of variation within a treatment would be consistent across treatments, this is something to consider when you design and carry out experiments—you want any factor other than your experimental treatment that can introduce additional variation to be eliminated.

Hi Pesto,

No worries on the late response—I'm glad the team found this question exciting! As an ecologist, I really enjoy connecting processes that happen at the cellular and molecular level within individual plants to ecosystem-level processes.

I like your thinking about competition—the fact that these plants are "plastic" in their hypocotyl length (meaning that it can vary due to environmental conditions) means that they can respond to competitors in their environment (other plants) that might be crowding them. And, I think their flexibility in response goes beyond competitors—what if a seed lands under a rock? Or is buried deep, deep underground?  Being able to respond quickly to the biotic (competition) and abiotic environment means that they are able to survive and eventually reproduce.