Payal PatelSection 16Group 4Lab Communication #4What light color would cause the best growth of Synechococcus sp. (skinny)IntroductionDifferent plants have been tested in recent times to see which would be the most efficient in providing fuel for our motorized vehicles. Billions of dollars are spent on the research of biofuels each year in the United States of America. It has been recognized that optimalgrowing conditions must be upheld for growth of the plants. One thing that has been discovered is that different pigments in the plant absorb different wavelengths (colors) of light that is then transferred into energy to be used in photosynthesis. In the experiment, the primary goal was to see what wavelength of light would be the optimal growing condition for the cyanobacteria skinny (Bourne, 2007).It was hypothesized that growing the culture in green light would inhibit the growth of the skinny because the color is not absorbed by the pigment for energy but rather reflected. There would be more growth of the skinny in the control than the sample grown in green light.MethodsIn the experiment, the control was the sample of skinny that was grown in normal lighting. It was not treated with a colored light. There were no replicates. Growing one sample in green light and the other in blue tested the samples, the independent variable. The dependent variable was the amount of growth of the skinny that resulted from the light in which the individual samples were grown.There were several methods used to collect the data. The weight of the pellets after centrifuging the samples was used to know how much growth there was in the presence of green, blue, and normal light. Another way data was collected were the TLC plates that separated the different pigments present in the algae and the spectrophotometer that measured the wavelengths of color in the sample.ResultsFigure 1In figure 1, you can see the distance each pigment traveled up the TLC plate. On the left is the skinny grown in blue light, the middle is the control, and the right is the skinny grown in the green light. The solvent traveled to eleven centimeters. A measurement was taken of the position of the pigment over the total distance of the solvent. The tables show the distance the pigment traveled over the distance the solvent traveled and the color that the pigment appeared.Blue Pigment 1 Pigment 2 Pigment 3ColorYellow Green-yellow YellowDistance traveled/solvent distance4117111011Green Blue ControlWeight of the Pellets(g)2.57 3.05 4.15DiscussionThe hypothesis was supported. The skinny cyanobacteria had inhibited growth from being grown in the green light. The best growth was observed in the control that was grown in normal lighting. The sample grown in blue light had median growth. The results were conclusive with what was explored in the article. Because the skinny is green and that signifies that the skinny reflects green light, the sample grown in green light did not have as much growth because all pigments in the skinny did not absorb green light. If this experiment were to be retested, then we would use more replicates andtest in a wider variety of colors of light. It was also be ideal to test more than one species of cyanobacteria per light source to see if other sources respond better to the colors of light than the skinny.References CitedBourne Jr., Joel. Green Dreams. N.p.: National Geographic, 2007. 38-59. Print.Schussler, Elisabeth, Jan Hudson, Erica Rowe, Monique Lemieux, and Sudhir Naswa. Biology 140 Lab Manual. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee-Knoxville, 2012. 17-22. Print.Green Pigment 1 Pigment 2 Pigment 3 Pigment 4 Pigment 5Color Yellow Yellow-green Bright yellow Green YellowDistancetraveled/solventdistance3.5116118118.75111011Control Pigment 1 Pigment 2 Pigment3Color Light green Yellow-green