Inquiry Lab – Animal Behavior IB Biology Inquiry Lab – Animal Behavior

What organism interests you the most for an animal behavior study? Remember, choice of organism is based on several factors: Are they harmless? Easy to work with and take care of? Reasonably small Low cost/easily accessible Invertebrates have a limited nervous system compared to vertebrates. It is more ethical to work with invertebrates but ALL animals should be treated with care and concern for their well-being.

Choices of Animals for our studies Pill bugs/Sow bugs (roly-poly) Pill bugs or "Sow bugs" scientific name is Armadillidium valgare. They are in the Phylum (Arthropoda) Class (Malacostraca) Order (Isopoda). This group includes shrimp and crabs; they are not really "bugs". Their appearance varies from dark gray to white with or without pattern. Three body parts: head, thorax, abdomen One prominent pair of antennae (one inconspicuous pair) Simple eyes Seven pairs of legs Seven separate segments on thorax Paired appendages at end of abdomen called uropods

Brine Shrimp (“sea monkeys”) Artemia is a genus of aquatic crustaceans Artemia populations are found worldwide in inland saltwater lakes, but not in oceans. Artemia are able to avoid cohabiting with most types of predators, such as fish, by their ability to live in waters of very high salinity (up to 25%). Artemia is a typical primitive arthropod with a segmented Wild brine shrimp eat microscopic planktonic algae. Compound eyes are the main optical sense organ in adult brine shrimps. Cultured brine shrimp can also be fed particulate foods including yeast, wheat flour, soybean powder or egg yolk.

Fruit flies- Drosophila melanogaster small insects called vinegar flies, that, usually feed on any decaying matter, especially rotting fruits and vegetables. found around the globe and reproduce extremely quickly they like the yeast that breaks down the sugar in these items during the fermentation process. As this decomposition occurs, the yeast produces the byproduct of alcohol, which many species also enjoy. They usually can spread very quickly from area to area, because most species are excellent fliers that are capable of traveling several miles in a single day.

What independent variable would you want to study regarding the behavior of the animal you choose? It would be helpful to research your animal of choice to see what environmental variables you can manipulate for your investigation. Remember that the variable you choose should make sense. Example- if pill bugs have limited vision, then don’t choose background color of their habitat as a variable. Find out a range of possibilities that the variable you choose would be appropriate for the animal. Example- if temperature is your variable, find out the high and low limits that the animal can tolerate

Suggestions (if appropriate for the animal you choose) Temperature levels Salinity levels Amount of a dietary requirement or dietary preference (can be household ingredients) pH levels Moisture levels Sizes of choice chamber Light intensity levels

What kind of choice chamber makes sense? For pill bugs

For the brine shrimp:

For fruit flies, construct a choice chamber out of water bottles

How to make this kind of choice chamber Students should cut off the bottom of the bottle using scissors, rinse out the bottle, and dry the bottle with towels if there is any liquid remaining. Then they match two bottles end-to-end on the cut side, use clear plastic packing tape to tape the bottles together, and label one side “A” and the other “B” They can remove the caps to add cotton balls with the testing substances.

When working with flies: To toss flies into a choice chamber, tap flies into the bottom of a culture and then quickly invert the culture into a funnel that is placed into one end of a choice chamber, making sure that the cap is on the other end of the chamber. Students then tap the culture to place at east 30–40 flies into the chamber, lift up the culture vial, and immediately plug the vial and cap the chamber. An additional technique to avoid the problem of flies escaping is to refrigerate them before the transfer. If vials are chilled for at least 15–30 minutes before tossing, they are easier to transfer.

Plan your design! Use your iPad to help with background information. Hypothesis? Dependent variable (How will you take quantitative and qualitative measurements?) Independent variable (optimally 5 treatments) Control group? (Negative and/or positive control) Controlled variables/constants- at least 5 and justify What will your data table look like? Factors affecting uncertainty? (what instruments are you using?) How will you analyze data? (Type of graph? Statistical tests you can do like mean, standard deviation, chi- square analysis?)