Research Update on Preference by Movement in the Pill Bug as a Dietary Preference By Darsi Fouillade and Lauryn Newman
Research Update on Preference by Movement in the Pill Bug as a Dietary Preference.
So our new Hypothesis is: “The food solvent (vinegar, sugar water, oil or water) will have an short-term and long-term effect on the pill bug and potato bug movement preference based on their metabolism, they will prefer a certain type and prep of food material.” We revised our hypothesis, because originally it also looked at comparing leaf vs. potato chip and in the end we wanted to focus on solvents only. We used dried coffee leaf and included a wet kimwipe, which was placed specifically into our experiment to increase the chances of survival over an extended period of time for our pill bugs since they need moisture to survive. We also added a small piece of potato into each environment to allow an additional food source in case the leaves were not enough to keep the pill bugs sustained. We kept the leaf/kimwipe and small piece of potato a constant and varied the solvent only. At the end of our third day, we had access to wild caught potato bugs, which are very similar to pill bugs, so we wanted to use this bug in our third extended study (2-5 days) to see if we would see similar patterns as the lab pill bugs.
Trends in data? During the short-term experiments we did not see any trend in preference, although after long-term (2-5 days) we did see a preference in where they were located. Two of our data sets are shown in the ‘Isopod Behavior on Third Trial’ and ‘Native Potato Bug Behavior on Fourth Trial’ graphs. In the Isopod graph, oil and sugar choice chambers are preferred and in the Potato Bug graph, the control and vinegar were preferred. 
The long-term trial preferences were:
Trial 1 - Pill Bug - 5 days - 4 in Karo Syrup, 1 in Control and 1 unaccounted for.
Trial 2 - Pill Bug - 2 days - 5 in control, 1 in Vinegar
Trial 3 - Potato Bug - 5 days - 6 in control.
Our long term data represents where the pill bugs choose to make their habitat and food source. Compiling the date, 67% of time they preferred long-term to be in the control habitat. Natural, no supplementation, just natural dirt, food and water. Although we haven’t done chi statistics, this would seem to support our hypothesis, that the solvent does have an affect on the pill bug (and native potato bug) preference. In this case, they prefer the natural.
Challenges? The isopods were not moving as much on the third trial. They had been recycled from earlier trials, so we could use a larger supply to have fresh ones ready to go. Also, if we had a larger supply, we could acquire a larger set of data to work out anomalies and outliers. The dirt also varied from day to day. The second day the dirt was very dry and it took more water to hydrate it, the third day it was fresh out of the bag and was already somewhat hydrated. So for the first two trials, the amount of dirt and water were not as consistent and the third trial we measured it so it could be reproduced if other students wanted to continue with this experiment. Finally the pill bugs were grown in a lab setting and were not native to the outdoors. We used native potato bugs from Lindale Park (thanks to another lab group for catching these!) and we observed them in the same set-up on day 3.
Our advice for other groups who want to run a similar experiment are: 1) catch a large number of potato bugs from a park or garden area as close to the experiment day as possible to observe natural behaviors. 2) run a trial for 2 hours with increments every 10 minutes with fresh bugs so you know what their immediate decisions are once they have to explore each of the chambers.
Questions we have for other groups? Another group worked with the potato bugs (the group that originally brought them in.) Did the potato bugs move more on the first day you used them when they were freshly caught? Did they too see them more lethargic on the second (later) day of trials? Where in the park did they find these potato bugs? Did they prefer the more natural settings too?
Hi group,
ReplyDeleteI think this is a great project you guys have going on! I wonder what are the short-term and long-term experiments and how did you guys measure them. I also like the idea of adding the potato bugs to your study, it allows the comparison between the two very similar species! I also agreed that having a small population will cause some errors, my group tried to eliminate such error by have a 50 mealworm population. Not sure will it work but we shall see soon. Great post!
Hey guys, your research seems very interesting and appears to have gone well. My group did a similar project to yours so I believe I can answer a few of your questions at the end. Our group also experienced the bugs were moving more initially and were much more lethargic on the later days, however we had contributed that to the drugs we exposed them to. We were also the group that brought in the extra bugs and we got them from underneath dead logs and things like that all around Lynndale park. In our experiment we did not have much movement with the bugs, however when they did decide to go in one of the environments for the most part whether it was natural or not did not have an effect on their choices.
ReplyDeleteGreat project! Is there other reason why you chose to use pillbugs and potato bugs than just seeing trends and more data? Did you expect them to have different preferences? After doing the experiment, did they have different preferences overall?
ReplyDeleteHey Guys,
ReplyDeleteGreat post, I like the idea of the changes to soil. It makes me wonder if you were to do the 20 minute trials each day for a 3-5 day period with three sets at the same time if it would find different results. I was also wondering if time of day or temperature could play effect in what food options they want. I was thinking maybe they are like people who eat all of one thing and over indulging then they start wanting to go back to something that makes them feel lighter/healthier. In my pill bug group, we only change leaves for them but kept them in normal soil while not using them so they seemed to have the same amount of energy as they did when we first got them. I hope these thoughts help if anyone wants to work with it again.
Hey guys, my group also did pill-bugs and had them in containers for the duration of the experiment and we also realized that very often the containers would go dry, so we had to make several changes like you did. Its interesting to read that isopods would prefer the oil chambers since at the beginning I thought that would be the one with the least amount and water would be the most perfered. I was thinking that next time, your group could use silvents that are more commonly put into the wild that way tthe experiment can be used more in the real world
ReplyDeleteThe choice to use oil in the soil is great as that has to be a huge pollutant you can find in a lot of soils these days from simple rain run-off to huge spills. Though, I am wondering why you chose to do pill bugs, this seems to be a popular specimen choice in the class.
ReplyDelete