Pill Bug Lab Report

The purpose of our experiment is to test animal behavior and reactions to a change in environment. Our guiding question is, “Why do living organisms respond to environmental factors?” This is basically a question that is asking why living things will react a certain way to environmental changes. The task to answer this question is to experiment with changing environmental factors with pill bugs.

When you are trying to get your pillbugs, use a paintbrush to sweep them onto your brush and then carefully place them into the choice chamber dish that is provided for you. Make sure to get 10 pillbugs so you can have five in each chamber. If they look dead, they are most likely just curled up. During the various tests, make sure to take notes on the appearance, the types of movements (kinesis or taxis) and the interactions between the animals.

I would describe the pillbugs’ response to moisture as taxis instead of kinetic. When an organism has a taxis response it either moves towards or away from a stimulus.

This experiment was performed to observe the taxis and kinesis of certain organisms. This is important because the organism’s survival and ability to reproduce depends on how they orient to stimuli using senses. We investigated the behavior of pill bugs to determine if they’ll move towards or away from the vinegar through smell. If I place pill bugs in a behavior tray with different chambers, then they’ll move away from the chambers that contains vinegar. A behavior tray with 5 chambers is used and 2 were control while the other 2 has cotton balls with a few drops of vinegar on it. 5 pill bugs are positioned in the center of the chambers and is covered with a transparent cover to observe the organisms for 10 minutes. Results had shown the class

At the beginning of our lab we had placed the pill bugs in the petri dish with dry filter paper and we observed their behavior. The pill bugs were going around the inside rim of petri in circles following each other, almost as if it were a game of tag. The pill bugs never seemed to stop moving, flipping over and were constantly climbing. Some of the pill bugs even tried to escape from the petri dish, but our group was quick to make that didn't happen. As our lab went on, we placed the 4 different pieces of filter paper with solutions on them and then added 4 pill bugs to it. We collected lots of information during this procedure.

One sowbug was then placed in the 3cm gap of the container and 30 seconds was started on the stopwatch. When time was completed we observed which side, grass or sand, the sowbug had preferred. Then, the sowbug was removed and a new one was placed in the container. The same steps were taken for each of the 20 bugs.

The isopods used for this experiment range in color from gray to brown and were about 8.5 to 18 mm in length. Each Isopod’s head had one pair of antennae and one pair of antennules, both used to detect sensory stimuli from the environment around the pillbug. Their bodies were made of a hard thorax with seven segments and an abdomen. Each pillbug had seven pairs of legs, one for each segment of its thorax. Pill bugs breathe through gill-like structures and must live in moist places.

11. Small insects may take a bubble of air underwater when they dive. The bubble can serve as an air tank for some time because

6 Place tray under enlarger. Stop down lens 2 stops. Make a step test on print (5-25 seconds).

The second experiment was split into three runs each ending with a variety of results. In run one of the experiment, 38 isopods were released into the glass arena. It was determined after the eight minutes elapsed that 57.2% ran to the sucrose sponge, 8.6% ran to the ethanol sponge, 23.0% ran to the NaCl sponge and 11.1% ran to the RO water sponge. For run two, there was a significant shift in the results with 1.3% of the isopods going to the sucrose sponge, 15.0% going to the ethanol sponge, 20.0% going to the NaCl sponge, and 63.8% going to the RO water sponge.

versus when we had foil covering the chamber, and when we tested foil versus regular light. This goes against our hypothesis where supposedly isopods liked the darker environments more. But, there are many factors in the experiment that could have affected the results. For example, the isopods seemed to have always found a way to flip upside down a bunch, which affected their ability to move. One way we could improve our results is by leaving the isopods in the choice chamber for a longer period of time. This would allow them to get used to their environment

· I set up the apparatus as shown in the diagram. I then placed a

1 ml of water should be added to the first test tube and make a note. In the second test tube, 1 ml of methyl alcohol should be added. In the third test tube, 1 ml of hexane must be added. Lastly, the fourth test tube will be a control.

During the lab, each table had 13 petri dishes filled with enough beans to cover the bottom. The main petri dish with the beetles were passed around in each group. Each group took 12 beetles from the dish, male and female, and placed them inside the large petri dish that was also covered with beans. Prior to this lab, the beetles were kept in an incubator that was kept at 30C where the larvae would be laid and then hatched. After 24-36 hours after the eggs have hatched, the beetles will become adults; which is what we used in this experiment.

Select sixteen isopods of different sizes, making sure to have some larger and some smaller to be able to show if mass makes a difference on the supercooling point. We weighed all the isopods and recorded their mass. Then placed them into separate microcentrifuge tubes with a thermocouple wire next to them and covered them with a small piece of foam. The foam was pushed down far enough to prevent the isopods from moving but not squishing them. Once all isopods were in the microcentrifuge tubes we places them into the programmable cold bath for sixty