High concentrations of fish and salinity are represented in white, pink, redish brown, and lower concentrations show in orange, yellow, and greens.  

Analysis

By setting the tilapia and salinity distribution maps side by side we should get a sense of any correlation between the two. Each interpolation map contains data of four collection dates. We only chose to show maps of four years of our six years collected so the image wouldn't be too small to view. When viewing the four fish interpolations (the maps to the left) it is easy to see that tilapia population occur mostly on the west side of the Salton Sea, except year 2007 where the data for one reason or another shows a high concentration of fish to the north.

The maps to the right show salinity distribution within the lake. It seems that salintiy within the lake varies greatly. Though we can make some generalizations among the stations. The northern tip of the Salton Sea seems to have stable high concentrations of salinity and so did the mid-western station (shown in white).  

Conclusion

            Besides the Tilapia, the Salton Sea is a significant habitat providing for endangered species such as Brown Pelican, Yuma Clapper Rail and the Desert Pupfish to name a few (Salton Sea Autority). The varying salt content does not seem to bother the tilapia, at least it is not appartly so without further investigation.

Discussion

Upon further study, we would like to extract the data further. Instead of by year, we would like to divide the yearly data into four to visualize the varying salinity within the lake at spring, summer, autumn, and winter seasons. We expect to gain a better idea this way especially because the tributaries within the water basin swell in the spring and summer months do to the rainy seasons and runoffs from nearby agriculture.

Test such as the ones run by the California Department of Fish and Game (where the data we collected was located) is an important source of information regaurding the life of the lake. In 2008, the water level of the lake was deemed to low to dock the boat used in the data collection process and the project was terminated.