Honors Biology Framingham High School Animal Behavior
thology is the study of animal behavior. In this lab, you will be performing etholigical experiments on pillbugs (scientific name Armadillidium vulgare), common isopods (not insects, but relations) found under rotten wood in your backyard. They are Eoften called rollie-pollies, because they tend to curl into a ball with their strong armored backs outwards when they are threatened.
We will be looking at orientation behaviors, or the movement of animals towards their most favorable environment. In particular, we will be looking at taxis, or the movement of an animal either toward a favorable environment or away from an unfavorable environment.
In this lab, you will first conduct a simple taxis experiment testing the preference for moist or dry environments. Then, you will conduct your own experiment on an environmental condition of your choice. The main goal of this lab is to test your ability to design, conduct, and interpret a valid scientific experiment.
Remember that a good scientific experiment must follow a number of important guidelines. Keep these in mind as you prepare your own.
They must have a clear hypothesis that can be answered in a binary, or yes/no way. The hypothesis for the first experiment (which can be worded as either “If pillbugs prefer moist environments, then pillbugs will be found in the wet chamber more often than the dry.” or vice versa).
You must have one variable, which will be tested and compared against a control. Preferably, you will do both the variable and control run at the same time.
All other factors must be standardized as much as possible. For example, in the first experiment you used the same pillbugs at the same time and had the same material in each chamber, except one piece of filter paper was wet, and the other dry.
Materials Petri dish Filter Paper 10 Pillbugs Blunt forceps Paintbrush Choice Chamber Timer
Caution: You will be working with living organisms. Treat them with respect, and do not deliberately cause them harm. Part 1: Moisture taxis.
1. Place 10 pillbugs in a petri dish using forceps, a brush, or your fingers. Try not to disturb the isopods overly much by shaking, poking or jostling them, as it may affect your experiment.
2. Let the dish to sit quietly for 5 to 10 minutes to allow the creatures to acclimate. Observe how they behave, paying attention to how they walk, whether they work in groups or alone, or if they tend to burrow in the bedding or walk in the open. You can make any important notes below.
3. Prepare a choice chamber for the moisture experiment by placing a piece of filter paper soaked in water on one side and a piece of dry paper in the other testing chamber.
4. Add your 10 pillbugs. Cover the chamber with the light damping lid—it will prevent the pillbugs from escaping.
5. Count how many pillbugs are in the wet and dry chamber every 30 seconds for 10 minutes. Continue for the full time, even if they all move into one chamber or stop moving altogether. Record the information in Table 1.
6. After your 10 minutes have elapsed, move your bugs back into the petri dish to await Part 2.
7. After you complete Part 2, your own experiment, graph the number of bugs in both the dry and wet chambers. Place the number of pill bugs on the y-axis and the time on the x-axis. Part 2.
Choose an environmental condition, and design an experiment to test the taxis of the pillbugs. You may be as creative as you like, keeping in mind that (1) you may not harm or kill the pillbugs, and (2) you must be able to run a good experiment, as that is the bulk of your grade.
You may wish to test whether the isopods prefer a specific chemical, temperature, pH, light level, sound, or anything else.
You will have access to balances (scales), measuring glassware, beakers, flasks, lamps, colored paper, aluminum foil, cold packs, and common chemicals. You may go outside to get different types of soil or leaves, etc. If you have a unique idea, speak to your teacher and they may be able to find the supplies you need.
Conduct and analyze your experiment using the protocol from part one. Pay close attention to reproducibility: make sure your directions are detailed enough that another Honors Biology student could repeat your experiment exactly. Pay particular attention to recipes of any solutions you make.
A second data table is provided to record your results from this experiment. Make more tables as you need.
Record detailed notes about your procedure below. Honors Biology Animal Behavior
Table 1. Moist/ Dry Taxis Experiment Time (min) Number in Wet Number in Dry Notes (if appropriate) 0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
5.5
6
6.5 7
7.5
8
8.5
9
9.5
10 Honors Biology Animal Behavior
Table 2. Data Table for your experiment. Number in Number in Time (min) ______Notes (if appropriate) 0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5.0
5.5
6
6.5 7
7.5
8
8.5
9
9.5
10