Results
Team Fruit of the Loom
Michelle Galvez
Richard Marcos
Zachary Leeson
Elizabeth Janiak
The number of microbes per mL of sample (N) was derived from colony count estimates.
Species diversity (D) estimates were further derived from N and species richness (S) (Fig. 1).
Potato demonstrated the highest S, though strawberry also displayed relatively strong numbers in
this regard. Grape skin hosted only one species in each culture, and so was definitively the least
species rich. Our calculations indicate that the cilantro samples hosted the greatest N, with
roughly 20 times that of strawberry skin, the host with the next highest N (Fig 3). Potato
exhibited the highest D, with almost double the D value of strawberry, the next most diverse
(Fig. 2). Grape skin showed the least diversity, with relatively very low values in both S and N
(Table 1).
Table 1: Calculated S, N, and D values for strawberry, cilantro, potato, and grape.
Avg D
StD (D)
Avg N
strawberry 2.296639 0.450893 13900
StD (N)
Avg (S)
StD (S)
17726.53 3.666667 1.527525
cilantro
1.151066 0.99725
potato
4.157325 2.876402 7733.333 659.9663 5
2.645751
grape
0
0
0
269066.7 330197.8 1.666667 0.57735
166.6667 57.73503 1
Results
Team Fruit of the Loom
Michelle Galvez
Richard Marcos
Zachary Leeson
Elizabeth Janiak
9
8
7
6
Species 5
Richness (S) 4
3
2
1
0
strawberry
cilantro
potato
grape
Fig. 1: Number of microbial species present in each sample of the skins under investigation.
The numerical value associated with each column is shown.
8
7
6
5
Species
4
Diversity (D)
3
2
1
0
straw
cilantro
potato
grape
Fig. 2: Microbial Diversity exhibited by each skin under investigation. The numerical value
associated with each column is shown.
x 10000
Results
Team Fruit of the Loom
Michelle Galvez
Richard Marcos
Zachary Leeson
Elizabeth Janiak
70
60
50
Microbes/mL
of sample (N)
40
30
20
10
0
straw
cilantro
potato
grape
Fig 3: N value in each sample. Note that the scale on the Y axis is x10,000. Cilantro’s N value
was roughly 162 times that of grape, which makes grape’s N of 1666.6667 look infinitesimally
small.