Animal Behavior Lab Report

Abstract:

  There were few purposes for this lab. First, we caught isopods in the wild and bought them back to the classroom, and we just closely observed their behaviors and structures. Then we used isopods to test three different scenarios: wet vs. dry, acid vs. dry, base vs. dry, to find out which environment they preferred. We placed 10 pillbugs in different environments and observed for 11.5 minutes.  The results were that the pillbugs preferred wet conditions over dry and base over acid. In addition, the pillbugs also showed taxis behavior in all scenarios.

Introduction:

  Ethology is the study of animal behavior.  An animal’s behavior is everything an animal does and how it does it.  There are three types of behaviors:  orientation, agonistic, and mating.  Orientation behaviors take the animal to its preferred environment.  Taxis is an animal moves toward or away from a stimulus.  Taxis is often observed in response to changes in light, heat, moisture, sound, or chemicals.  Kinesis is random movement and doesn’t involve stimuli.  Agnostic behavior is when animals respond to each other in aggressive or submissive movements.  An example would be when the hair on a dog’s back stands up when it is being aggressive.  Mating behaviors are activities that involve finding, courting, and mating with a member of the same species.  An example would be a peacock fluffing up its feathers to attract females.  There are differences between classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is a  type of associative learning in which an arbitrary stimulus is associated with a reward or punishment, but  Operant Conditioning is a type of associative learning in which an animal learns to associate one of its behavior with a reward or punishment; also known as trial-and-error learning.

Hypothesis:

    When isopods are exposed to wet and dry conditions, they will prefer to stay in the wet environment because they are used to living in dark, moist environment.  When isopods are exposed to acid or base conditions, they will prefer the acid conditions.

Materials: 

Petri dish

Connected chamber

Water

Pipette

Filter paper

Timer

Magnifier

Paint brush

Vinegar (acid)

Ammonia (base)

Procedure:

 1. Collect 10 isopods from the wild

2. Place isopods in a Petri dish with a paintbrush and observe them for 10 minutes. Record observations that are characteristic to the bugs.

3. Place a wet filter paper in one chamber and a dry one in the other.

4. Put the isopods in and cover the chambers

5. Start the stopwatch and record the number of isopods in each chamber every 30 seconds

6. After 3 minutes, replace the wet filter paper with one with vinegar

7. Repeat procedure 4-5

8. After 3 minutes, replace the vinegar filter paper with one with ammonia

9. Repeat procedure 4-5

Data

Time (minutes)	Number of isopods in wet chamber	Number of isopods in dry chamber	Notes
0	-	-
0.5	6	6
1.0	5	5
1.5	2	8
2.0	4	6
2.5	4	6
3.0	4	6
3.5	3	7
4.0	3	7
4.5	3	7
5.0	3	7

Time (minutes)	Number of isopods in acidic chamber	Number of isopods in dry chamber
5.5	1	9
6.0	0	10
6.5	0	10
7.0	0	10
7.5	0	10
8.0	0	10
8.5	0	10

Time (minutes)	Number of isopods in base chamber	Number of isopods in dry chamber
9.0	1	9
9.5	3	7
10.0	4	6
10.5	4	6
11.0	5	5
11.5	6	4

Analysis:

       The independent variables were the different conditions in the chambers.  For the first experiment, the independent variables were the wet and dry conditions.  In the second and third experiment, the independent variables were the ph.  For both experiments, the dependent variable was the isopod behavior.  The main control for this experiment was the initial observation.  The kinesis observed at this time was used to determine if the isopod behavior in the two experiments was truly taxis behavior in response to the different conditions.  Other controls include using the same amount of bugs, using a timer, using the same chamber, and using similar textures in the chambers.

            In the first experiment, our data shows that isopods preferred the dry conditions.  This is not what I expected, because pillbugs suppose live in dark and moist environment and they use gills, so they need moist conditions to survive.  This could have been due to different wet conditions.  The isopods may avoid an area if it is too wet and this would skew the results. 

                 In the second experiment, the isopods preferred the dry conditions over the acid conditions.  My hypothesis is wrong again, they do not prefer to live in a more acidic environment. My initial thought was that they live in soil and under logs, which are acidic conditions.  However, it could be another experimental error, because the vinegar was too acidic, they would rather stay in the dry chamber.  

Conclusion:

            From our data, the isopods preferred the dry environment which is against their normal living habit.  My hypothesis was proven incorrect.

            In the acid vs. dry and base vs. dry experiment, the isopods preferred the base condition which is again against their normal living habit.  Most soils areas are acidic.  The isopods did not choose the environment that was closest to their natural habitat. My hypothesis was proven incorrect again.