Determination of the Effect of Freshness of Leaves on Armadillidium vulgare (Common Pill Bug) Habitat Preference Using a Control Chamber By: Solace Asong, Natalie Durland, Zoe Du, Cammie Edwards, and Tien Van

Bio 212 , Sec AA

Winter 2018

3/6/2018

Research Experiment Abstract

Determination of the Effect of Freshness of Leaves on Armadillidium vulgare (Common Pill Bug) Habitat Preference Using a Control Chamber

By: Solace Asong, Natalie Durland, Zoe Du, Cammie Edwards, and Tien Van

In this experiment, we are working with pillbugs. We will observe their behavior to determine their preference condition of leaves give different conditions of leaves ( Asong et al. 2018).  Our experiment tests the hypothesis that Armadillidium vulgare, (the common pill bug) will choose fresh leaves over dead leaves because fresh leaves are rich in moisture and nutrients. We ran six trials (three without soil and three with soil) in a choice chamber and counted the number of pill bugs in each chamber at one-minute intervals for 10 minutes. Our hypothesis predicted that the pill bugs would prefer the chamber with 75% or 100% fresh leaves (Asong et al. 2018). However, our chi-squared analysis supported our null hypothesis, that A. vulgare did not significantly prefer fresh leaves, despite observed evidence of “favorites” within a trial. During the experiment, we saw that for some trials, the pillbugs seemed to favor the chamber with 0% and 25% of fresh green leaves because the dead leaves helped them conceal and better hiding from predators (Asong et al. 2018). Future experiments testing our hypothesis would get more accurate results by limiting outlier bugs that refused to choose a chamber at all (and never left the center chamber) and running more trials (Asong et al. 2018)

Authors contribution:

All authors contributed to this abstract. All authors proofread and edited the assignment. ND wrote the result. TV wrote the introduction. CE wrote the challenge. ZD wrote the conclusion. Last but not least, SA wrote the method.