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Pill Bug Lab Report

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In the following weeks we have been touching on the topic of evolution and how it comes about through the process of natural selection. This is a concept that has been researched extensively for over a century now and still continues to bring interesting findings day after day. There are several sub sections however that have contributed to the evidence of evolution including Ethology or the study of animal behavior (usually under natural conditions). There are also many different behaviors to study, however, this particular lab will focus largely on orientation or “the activity by which animals situate themselves with respect to physical elements within their environment” and taxis or “directed movement toward (positive) or away (negative) …show more content…

2) Test the isopods response to moisture in experiment one and their response to other variables assigned to each group in experiment two. The overall purpose was to find out which environment the pill bugs preferred. For the first part of this experiment I believe that when isopods are exposed to either wet or dry conditions, they will prefer to live in moist conditions. And for the second experiment (in my groups case) I believe that when pill bugs are exposed to environments with food and environments with no food, they will prefer environments with …show more content…

An appropriate explanation for this would be that since pill bugs are generally attracted to moisture in natural environments and tend to live under leaves, logs and rocks where moisture levels are usually higher than they are most likely to choose to live in a place more closely assimilated to its natural habitat. For the second part of the experiment, the results we collected actually contradicted our hypothesis that “when exposed to environments with food and environments with no food, the pill bugs will prefer environments with food.” A reasonable explanation for these results is that pill bugs are known as scavengers, “It is reported to eat dead leaves, leaf mold, fungi, and dead animals,” (Paris, 1963). The food seemed to have no effect on attracting the pill bug to the variable environment and that may be because it is not a part of their diet. Another possible explanation for these results is that “humidity reactions are of primary importance to terrestrial isopods,” (Waloff, 1941), meaning that isopods are more concerned with finding moist environments first rather than feeding on food. The following quote helps explain why there was definitely more movement between the control and variable chambers and why isopods seem to move much

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