Research Project Update by Morgan Howell, Parker Lehman, Samuel Robinson, David Rowlett, and Janessa Wangadi,
Figure 1. Samuel Robinson inserting a drop of 1.2% nicotine solution to the potato bug on the petri dish.
Research Hypothesis:
If presented with the choice between regular soil and soil soaked in nicotine or caffeine, more isopods will choose the soil soaked in the chemical after they were acclimated because the isopods will develop an addiction to the substances.
Discussion:
The pillbugs that were not exposed to the different solutions were the most active when we ran them in the choice chambers. Most of the pillbugs that were exposed to the 0.5% nicotine and 20 mg/ml caffeine solution were relatively inactive. When using chi squared statistical analysis to check if our data matched our hypothesis, we found that for the bugs living in the nicotine and caffeine environments when presented with a choice between going to soil soaked in water and soil soaked in nicotine or caffeine, the presence of one of the drugs in the soil did not affect the bugs decision. Also, when the bugs living in a water soaked environment were presented with the choice between water soaked soil and nicotine soaked soil the presence of the drug in the soil did not affect the bugs decisions. However, when the bugs living in an environment with soil soaked in water were presented with a decision between soil soaked in water and soil soaked in caffeine, the presence of caffeine did affect the bugs decision. In this case, after 5 minutes in the choice chamber all of the bugs chose the environment with caffeine.
One surprise was how many pillbugs died because we thought that since the solutions were embedded in the soil, the effects of the stimulants would not cause enough trauma to the pillbugs to die. We were also shocked about how much work it was to resuspend the caffeine powders and had to use hot plates to completely dissolve. Another challenge that we faced was making the optimum environment for the pillbugs using the jars. One advice for others interested in doing the same experiment, we would not suggest to not use too much nicotine or caffeine and check on the bugs frequently to make sure they have a proper amount of food. Some of the potatoes in the pillbug jars were dry when we opened them on Tuesday. Another piece of advice would be to have a larger sample size, to get more accurate data and a better chi squared.we only had 4 live bugs in the choice chambers which was not enough.
An issue we faced was the amount of drugs used to give the pillbugs. The 1.0% nicotine, 100 mg/ml caffeine, 50mg/ml caffeine solution killed the pillbugs. We overcame this by only using the pillbugs that had 0.5% nicotine and 20 mg/ml caffeine solution. Another issue we faced was we didn’t have enough time to resuspend the 100mg/ml caffeine solution on the second day so we ended up adding an undissolved solution to the dirt. Time constraints also restricted the number of trials we were able to perform. By the time we completed the trials for each bug in the different solutions it was time to clean up. We decided not to do more trials the next day because the results could be different with more incubation time, so we ended up only getting one trial.
Questions:
Did any other groups that used pillbugs for their research experienced similar problems with keeping the bugs alive?
How did other groups that used drugs calculate the amount to use on their animals?
Did the groups that also used nicotine as one of the variables observed similar patterns in the pillbugs’ behaviours?
Hey guys
ReplyDeleteYour lab was sort of similar to ours. We also used pill bugs but we did not do choice chambers, we chose for them. We did want the pill bugs to be alive but at the same time we wanted to see if they would have a fatal reaction to nicotine. However, our calculation was not as specific as yours. We just added the concentration that was already given to us.
I have enjoyed following your experiment these last couple of weeks and ironically we ended up using your left over potato bugs. So thank you for that! They were exciting to watch and they moved sooo much faster at first. Our chemicals were acetic acid, high fructose corn syrup and oil. While none of our bugs died, over the extended night stays they predominately preferred the environment that contained only dirt, water and whole foods, like leaves and potatoes. For the potato bugs themselves, I believe they 100% preferred the natural environment. That or they just liked to group together. That is interesting in your one trial that after 5 minutes they all preferred the choice chamber with coffee. I wonder if the smell influenced their decision, especially since coffee has that earthy smell to it. Was your caffeine odorless or did it smell like coffee?
ReplyDeleteHi guys, I really enjoy reading your post. I really interesting to look at your project and your result. Our group also did an experiment with pill bugs. We also looked at their preference. It interesting to how the pill bugs behaved when given naturally pesticide like nicotine and caffeine. I was predicting that the pill bugs would experience some kind of distress and would not show preference with the soil that was contaminated with nicotine and caffeine.
ReplyDeleteIt weird to read that you had an issue with your pillbug dying because we had issues with none of our test subjects dying. It might be that we didn't apply enough fertilizer to observe behavioral effects on the pillbug; we used the recommend concentration given on the bottle. However, we could have sprayed more fertilizer to intensify the concentration in one environment. In addition, to give some back story on my group's experiment, we had four different environments with different concentration of fertilizer. From reading your post and conclusions from my own experiment, it seems that pill bugs aren't affect by the substance present when placed in a choice chamber. I feel that it is just a curiosity factor when they choose nicotine or caffeine when they lived in the water environment. In the future, maybe we should leave the pillbug in the choice chamber for more than five or ten minutes.
ReplyDeleteHi everyone! Great job on your experiment so far. My group also did work with pill bugs, and surprisingly none of our test subjects died. We used pollutants like Dawn dish soap, fertilizer, and a 1% nicotine solution, but we kept the amount of them used very small as we wanted our experiment to be as realistic as possible. Do you think your results would have been different if you did a long-term exposure rather than short-term? I think it's awesome that you guys found the pill bugs preferred the environment with caffeine in it versus the regular moist environment as caffeine is such a commonly ingested substance all around the world. Maybe pill bugs could be used for future testing of the effects caffeine has in different situations.
ReplyDelete