Pillbug Lab Report

The lab handout provided by the instructor was used as a guideline to conduct this experiment. The only difference was the organism used and data collection period. For this experiment, pill bugs and crickets were utilized. Also, data was collected for a period of 12 minutes.

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.

The dependent variable is pulsation rates of L. variegatus before and after they were in the treatments. The standardized variable of this experiment would be the temperature of the surroundings of the L. variegatus, the three pulsation rates taken for each worm before and after the treatments, and also the amount of time each worm was kept in their respective treatments. The level of treatment for this experiment would be ten because of the six different concentration treatments of caffeine and nicotine along with the four household drugs. The sample size of the experiment differed from some treatments to other. For the three different concentrations of caffeine and nicotine, the sample size was 18 black worms each. The sample size of the control treatment of week 1 was 6 black worms. 12 black worms were used for the control of week 2, decaffeinated coffee and instant coffee. 11 black worms were used for the tea treatment and 15 were used for the tobacco treatment. There were three replications of the pulsation rate readings per worm before and after the treatment. With all this information we were able to get the results we got.

This information would suggest that the sow bugs were not especially interested in food at the time the experiment took place.

Pillbugs and sowbugs are terrestrial isopods that belong to the order Isopoda and the arthropod class crustacean. According to the Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology, the terrestrial isopods have evolved from the marine forms. However despite the fact that they seek moist environments they must also avoid an overly moist environment (Journal of Insect Science, 2008). The two different species resemble one another phenotypically. However, pillbugs are a dark gray and the sow bugs are a light gray with posterior projections. Pillbugs also curl into a ball when they feel endangered and the sow bugs do not. The pill bugs used in this experiment were female. Isopods primarily live in dark, damp habitats in order to prevent dehydration (Isopod Behavior Lab). The purpose of this experiment was to determine the type of environment isopods prefer. First we tested to see if the isopods preferred a dry or moist environment and then we tested to see if they preferred the potting soil or the leaf litter environment. For the observation of isopods in response to moisture experiment it was said that each of the two different species would prefer a different environment. For part two, Observation of Isopods in response to other variables, it was hypothesized that the Isopods would prefer the potting soil or the leaf litter environment.

As defined by “Environmental Science- 14th Edition”, an ecosystem is “a set of organisms within a defined area or volume that interact with one another and with their environment of nonliving matter and energy.” I will be using the computer simulation to alter the interactions of the organisms in the ecosystem to see what changes occur.

The purpose of our experiment was to observe the behavior of the pill bugs. We were trying to find exactly whether the pill bugs would be attracted or repelled by the chemicals. The chemicals used were vinegar, water, salt solution and a sugar

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.

An ecosystem is a community of interacting organisms and their environment. If one of the organisms is disturbed, it can change the trophic cascade which is a sequence of impacts down the food chain. Hannibal supports this statement by writing “keeping these connections going ensures healthy, functioning ecosystems, which in turn support human life.”(578) An example of this is if all of the beavers died the other organisms would go somewhere else or die due because they no longer will have dams to support their ideal habitat.

Every 30 seconds their preferred position was documented. Once the three minutes were up and all the information was documented then the ten pill bugs were gently collected and put back in to their jars. These pill bugs were then traded with another tables pill bugs. The new pill bugs came from a sucrose and water chamber habitat. Again ten of these pill bugs were gently grabbed and placed in the chamber for 3 minutes with every 30 seconds documenting where the pill bugs preferred. After the 3 minutes the pill bugs were grabbed placed back in to their jars and switched again with a different table. The last trial of pill bugs came from a tea and water habitat. The ten pill bugs were gently grabbed and placed in to the chamber for three minutes. Every 30 seconds their preferred habitat was documented. When the 3 minutes were up the pill bugs were gently grabbed and placed back in to their jar. In this experiment the control was the distilled water, the dependent variable was the number of bugs in the habitat preferred, and the independent variable was the alcohol, and the water

| Based on explicit knowledge and this can be easy and fast to capture and analyse.Results can be generalised to larger populationsCan be repeated – therefore good test re-test reliability and validityStatistical analyses and interpretation are

With a P-value of 0.00, we have a strong level of significance. No additional information is needed to ensure that the data given is accurate.

Ecology today can be defined as “the study of the interrelationships between living things and their environment”. It is important to understand that when we say that ecology includes the “environment”, we are talking about everything that is external to an organism, all the biotic and abiotic. Nowadays it also attempts to understand and explain the how and why of the origins and mechanisms of interactions.

In this case, level of significance, α was not provided. Therefore, the analysis will be evaluated based on two α values which are:

The instrument used is questionnaire and chi-square is used to test the relationship between the variables, which has proven that there is a