A couple of blogs that I am subscribed to include Hannah Prescott and Sydney Joyner's blogs, which are titled "Sourpuss Sourdough" and "Let's Get This Bread." This week I have reviewed the research questions they have proposed that they would like to answer with the data we receive from this semester's starters. I also reevaluated my own potential research questions this week to determine what I would like to ask about our data.
Hannah asked the following questions:
1. Is there a connection between the type of fruit and the type of microbes found in the starters?
2. Do certain microbes display a particular phenotypic smell in the starters, and does this smell change or become more strong or weak in relative abundance?
3. Did the environment the starters were grown in impact all of the starters as far as which microbes were present?
Summary: I think Hannah has asked some great questions! Hannah's third question is similar to one of mine. I am also curious to try and determine if the environment in which the starters grew, or the individual who grew them, may have impacted the microbial composition. However, I think this question may be a little more difficult to answer than some of the other ones that have been proposed. There will likely be more factors involved with the environment. For example, when asking about the differences in fruit types, we would likely be comparing the different species and/or whether it was bought from the grocery store or grown and picked at home. There are many environmental factors that could have played a role such as the temperature, the amount of sunlight, the location, the pets present, etc. It may be harder to find all of this information for each sample. One thing that Hannah has asked about that I did not consider in any of my research questions is the aroma of the starters.
Sydney asked the following questions:
1. Were there any microbes that were only present in the starters with a certain type of fruit?
2. What types of fruit make the more variety of microbes grow?
3. When comparing all the control starters to one another, why do they not all have the same amount and type of microbes present? What other factors can contribute to these differences?
Summary: Sydney also asked some really interesting questions! I think it will definitely be easier to answer questions regarding the microbes present with different types of fruits than to answer a question that asks how and why control starters differ in microbial composition. It would likely be more difficult to determine what factors contributed to the differences in the control starters than to determine if there were any microbes characteristic to a specific type of fruit. Sydney's questions differed a little more from mine than Hannah's did, and I think they may also be a little more broad. For example, I asked specifically about how microbial compositions compare between starters containing apples vs those containing applesauce while she did not ask about any particular type of fruit.
My Research Questions
Below are the original three research questions I proposed:
1. Do the control starter samples and experimental starter samples grown by the same person have similar microbial compositions?
2. Are there any distinct differences in microbial compositions of experimental starters that contain fresh apples vs those containing applesauce, or are they similar?
3. Does the age of the sourdough starters have an impact on the diversity or abundance of microorganisms present within the samples?
Summary/Revision: After receiving feedback on my original questions, I decided that I wanted to keep the same three questions and just add to them to include some ideas that were given to me by others. For question number one, I would like to consider or ask about different environmental factors that may have altered the microbial compositions of the starters grown by different people. My second question will remain the same. For question number three, I would like to include the possibility that the age of the starters may have also played a role in which phenotypic characteristics were present. For example, Hannah suggested that the really large air pockets observed in her starters may have been present because her starters were about 30 days old. Below are my revised research questions:
1. Do any control starters and experimental starters grown by the same person have different microbial compositions, and which, if any, environmental factors may have influenced them?
2. Are there any distinct differences in microbial compositions of experimental starters that contain fresh apples vs those containing applesauce, or are they similar?
3. Did the age of the sourdough starters have an impact on the diversity or abundance of microorganisms present within the samples, and were there any changes in phenotypic characteristics as they aged?
Links to Other Blogs:
https://sourpusssourdough.blogspot.com/
https://letsgetthisbread0.blogspot.com/
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