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QUESTION:How does the difference heights of plants affect how many insects are attracted to them?
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Prairies are rich ecosystems with lots of sunlight and several different types of precipitation and fluctuating seasons. Prairies are often mostly made up of grasses that can grow up to 7 feet tall. Plants called forbs can also be found in the prairie. Forbs aren’t grass or woody and they produce flowers during warmer seasons. The prairie at Free State high school is a prairie restoration experiment made by KU and FSHS. It’s used for educational and research purposes and to restore a native prairie ecosystem.
DATA
We went out to the prairie with a meter stick, clipboard, paper, and pencil and we found 6 different species of plants. We counted the insects on different flowers by counting how many insects were on the flower at one time. We classified sunflowers as tall plants because they were over 1.5 meters tall. We classified Hyssopleaf Thoroughwort as a medium plant because it was under 1.5 meters tall but over 1 meter tall. We classified the giant blue sage as a medium plant because it was 1.1 meters tall. We classified New England Asters, Drummond’s Asters, and Yard Asters as small plants because they were all under 1 meter tall.
REASONING
According to the data from our experiment, we have concluded that shorter plants in the Free State prairie generally attract more insects than taller plants. On average, we found about 2 more insects on the shorter plants compared to the taller plants. The medium-sized plants that were around 1 meter tall had approximately 1.75 insects on them on average. The taller plants that were about 1.5 meters tall had around 1 less insect than the plants that were 1 meter tall on average. This data shows that taller plants are not as attractive or popular when it comes to insects compared to shorter plants. We assume that it is because they are farther away from the ground and therefore harder to reach.
DISCUSSION/NEXT STEPS
We could study more different species of plants of all different sizes. We could use more specific methods of determining which plants are short, medium-sized, or tall. We could study how the appearance of the plant affects how it attracts bugs like color or shape. We had replicates in data when we recorded how many insects were on each plant. Taking more data and finding new plants with different shapes and sizes would help us be more specific with our experiment and our conclusion.
SUNFLOWER
Yard Aster
Hyssopleaf thoroughwort
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Schwarting, J., & Alexander, H. (n.d.). Free State Prairie. Free State Prairie. https://freestateprairie.wixsite.com/mysite/about
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