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Which Plot Will Attract the Most Grasshoppers?
Which Plot Will Attract the Most Grasshoppers?
In this experiment, we set out to find which plot treatment in the Free State prairie attracted the most grasshoppers, the plot with grasses, the plot with grasses and flowers, or the plot with more flowers than grass.
Our group:
Jasper- Documenter
Aidyn- Editor
Aspyn- Visual Director
Prairies are large, open grasslands native to midwest America. prairies are home to a multitude of creatures, including grasshoppers, which is what our group decided to focus on. Grasshoppers are insects that true to their name, are mainly found in grassy areas feasting on the vegetation.
To begin, we started with the question, "which plot treatment attracts the most grasshoppers?". As there are three plot treatments in our prairie, one with just grass, one with both grasses and flowers, and one with more flowers than grasses, we were curious to see if one plot was more attractive to grasshoppers. We started by researching grasshoppers to understand their effects on the prairie ecosystem and what kinds of grasshoppers we might find in our prairie.
While beginning to collect data, we had to list constants in our experiment. We used the 6th plot as a control plot, because it only had grass, providing a starting ground. We decided to measure off a meter square in the southeast corner of every plot then run a test where we would count the number of grasshoppers we saw in a two-minute period. We would then capture two grasshoppers from that plot. We placed them in plastic cups then took pictures and observed them. Jasper, our documenter, would tally the numbers and write down our observations. We would then move on to the next plot. We did about two plots a day at about the same time of day each time. We went back and did this process twice on each plot. Below is the data we collected from each of the plots.
To make the most of the data we were able to collect, we did two trials in each plot. We conducted trial one and saw seven grasshoppers in plot six, six in plot 12, and saw five in plot 18. When we conducted trial two we saw 5 grasshoppers in plot six, 4 grasshoppers in plot 12, and three grasshoppers in plot 18. out of those numbers, two were caught and recorded and the rest were spotted during our two-minute sweep. The averages of this data are shown in a graph below.
As shown by our data, grasshoppers seemed to be most attracted to the control plot. This surprised our group at first but as we kept thinking, we realized that the increase in plant variety would mean an increase in competition for the grasshoppers. We thought that it would be simple to catch the grasshoppers but it was very difficult. It certainly wasn't the smoothest way to carry out our experiment but if someone were to carry out the same experiment, we are confident they would get the same results.
Works Cited
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