Research-Intro: Painted Lady Butterflies
Caterpillars
By Na Nguyen, Meredith Swann, Shuaiqian Men, Deborah Haney, Julia Smith
- Photo of your research (research subject, or something relevant to your topic)Brief description of your research
With global climate change becoming more pronounced we are starting to see more insects being grown in a laboratory setting, especially potential pollinators like bees, butterflies, beetles, and more. What influence this has on the organism's’ natural preferences and behavior will be crucial to our understanding of the future of our planet, and the future availability of certain food sources. By monitoring the development of caterpillar larvae exposed to different food sources and comparing their growth to literature values, we can delve further into the potential influence lab based settings may have on Painted Lady butterflies. Some key terms to know:
To molt: to shed old skin or shells in order to make room for new growth
Morphology: the study of a physical form or appearance of something
Pupa: An insect in an immature form, between the stages of larva and adult
Chrysalide: A hard-shelled pupa
- Clearly state your hypothesis and predictions.
Our hypothesis is that the food type will influence the development of caterpillars.
Different creatures have their own different tastes for food. As well as caterpillars, they also have one favorite food. However, if there are more than one type of food source and we separate the same amount of caterpillars in each condition, we are curious that if they will result in different size and shape. In this case, we predict that the food sources which is favored by caterpillars provides them more nutrients to grow in a better condition (heavier & bigger).
- Tell us why your group decided to do this research project.
The purpose of this experiment is we want to know the differences between the lab growth caterpillars vs. the caterpillars that growth by different food sources. As climate change intensifies current environmental issues, we will likely need to provide artificial environments for many of the organisms that face extinction. The more we know about what food sources provide the best development for insects and what impact being grown in a lab versus in the wild has on organisms, the better we will be able to manage populations that are threatened by environmental changes or habitat loss.
- Tell us about any challenges that your group has dealt with thus far.
The challenges that we had were where to find the organic plant - food sources for the caterpillars so that won’t kill our experiment subjects. The second thing is that we don’t know if we have enough time for them to grow fully to see the differences and recognize the changes. In addition, simulating their natural growth environment is also a challenge since the caterpillars we get are used to living in the nature. Now, we are having problem of the shipping time. They won’t be here on time, we are trying to find it locally but still don’t know if it’s available anywhere near us.
- Provide us with at least 3 references for background information for your project.
Butterfly Host Plants. Butterfly Host Plants * Larva Larvae Caterpillar Hosts * Turtlehead, Chelone lyonii, Penstemon digitalis', Humulus lupulus, Hops, Ruta graveolens, Rue, Passiflora incarnata, Passion Flower Vine'. 2018 Jan 14 [accessed 2018 Feb 9]. http://butterflybushes.com/butterfly_host_plants.htm
Swallowtails: Subfamily Papilioninae. Host Plants by Butterfly Species. [accessed 2018 Feb 9]. http://www.dallasbutterflies.com/Butterfly%20Gardening/Host%20Plants%20by%20Butterfly%20Species.htm
Kelly L and Debinski DM. 1999. Effects of larval food-limitation on vannessa cardui linnaeous (lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). The American Midland Naturalist 141(2):315-22.
Painted Lady Butterfly. 2013.
Painted Lady Butterfly: A CAROLINA CareSheet. 2011.
Hi guys, I enjoyed reading about your project, it seems like it will be very interesting. One part I liked about your project is you mentioned it relates to animal extinction and the possibility for having artificial environments for some animals. This is fascinating, and studying what provides the best habitat for various different animals could become a huge area of scientific study with some animals needing to be isolated in man made environments in order to preserve bio diversity.
ReplyDeleteHey guys,
ReplyDeleteI would have never thought to use caterpillars for this project, so I was intrigued when I saw the image above. I like that you guys mentioned climate change and the effects that it causing on the insects. I was wondering how many caterpillars are you guys going to be observing? and how will you measure their growth?
Hi guys If I had loads of time thats defiantly the project that I would love to do. And I loved the concept because you are right about animals eventually needing humans to assist them to continue to grow and reproduce so they don't go extinct. I feel it could be related to many deferent organism's in the future so this is a great idea. Your most certainly right the time we have in lab to do our research experiment makes it nearly impossible to monitor growth rates of specific organisms unless they have an extremely fast growth rate. I am also not surprised that shipping is difficult for the caterpillars seeing that they are more popular than other insects and many people buy them to raise for science classes and home projects for fun because the way they grow and develop is such an amazing thing to see. I think one suggestion that Gwen should take into consideration is finding a way to allow more time for people to do projects that may take a longer period of time. It would make people more interested in the actual project if they can do something fun and interesting and those things usually take a lot longer to accomplish. I for one have found the more interested a group is in their project the more exciting the report turns out, and the more fun and engaged people are listening to peoples presentations and wanting to find out more. So I admire your spirit in trying to do a more difficult and fun project way to be proactive!
ReplyDeleteI think this is going to be a fun project! I'm very curious to see how you will be able to get over those challenges! Maybe you could ask around social media to see if anyone has some caterpillars? Maybe you could also go to the Edmonds Community College farm and see if they have any just lying around? I hope everything works out for your group!
ReplyDeleteHi group! By reading the introduction, I see that this project is a very fun and interesting project. I am very curious to see how the sizes of the caterpillars will change depends on different types of food. I am also very curious to see how climate change will affect the development of insects and pollinators, their behavior and their preference in food. I also agree that different types of food will possibly affect the size of the caterpillars because I think that climate change might change the caterpillars' preferences in food and thus, might lead to changes in size in the caterpillars. I think that, in nature, insects and pollinators food source might be affected by climate change.
ReplyDeleteYour project sounds very fascinating. I never thought much about how the food source can affect the development of the butterflies, but it is clear when you explained that it could affect butterfly extinction. I heard that many American schools allow students to raise butterflies as a way to learn science hands-on. Your research could possibly add more depth to that by teaching the students if there was a change in the color or shape. I hope that your group will be able to do this experiment because it sounds really interesting.
ReplyDeleteNice proposal, my group ran into the same challenge. We hope we have enough time to complete our experiment in the two weeks we are given. I was wondering if your group had thought out how many food sources you will be supplying as well as how many caterpillars you plan to use in this experiment. So far you experiment sounds very interesting, so I plan on looking at the results once its complete. Good luck!
ReplyDelete