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Does the number of type of plants in a plot affect the number of type of bugs caught and/or recorded?
Does the number of type of plants in a plot affect the number of type of bugs caught and/or recorded?
Michael: writer
Michael: writer
Cooper: editer
Cooper: editer
Drae: visual director
Drae: visual director
Compass Plant
Hyssopleaf Thoroughwort
Indiangrass
Big Bluestem
Background info
Background info
Here at Free-state High School we have the liberty of having a KU research prairie in our backyard. This caused me and my partners to become inspired to ask some questions. The prairie is divided into 18 sections, ⅓ of those sections contain only grass type plants. The other ⅓ has grass type plants and Forbes (flowers), and the remaining ⅓ contains plants and 2x the Forbes. This can lead to many interesting experiments and questions. The question my partners and I asked was, do the amount of plants (Forbes and grasses) affect the amount/kind of insects that are attracted or unattracted to that plot. So me and my partners got started on figuring out the answer to this question.
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Evidence
Evidence
In our expedition to the prairie we found a number of interesting plants and insects. But how did we find these plants and animals? Our group went out into the pararie 3 days in a row, using the seek app , we would find and identify as many insects and plants as possible in each plot. We then compared the amount kind and amount that we found and made a comprehensive list. Here is that list of all species found:
Grasses-
Plants (2)-
Indian grass
Hyssopleaf throughwort
Insects (4)-
Longhorn
Stink bugs
Drone bees
Typical hover fly
Grass and forbes-
Plants (12)-
Grey -headed coneflower
Tall thimbleweed
New england aster
Wild blue larkspur
Narrowleaf mountainmint
Giant blue sage
Hyssopleaf throughwort
Blue bigstem
Giant sunflower
Compass plant
Western ragweed
Ashy sunflower
Insects (5)-
Longhorn grasshopper
Orbweaver spider
Gardner spider
Honey bee
beatle
Grasses and 2x forbes
Plants (12)-
Compass plants
Missouri ironweed
Ashy sunflower
New england aster
American senna
Lemon grass
Big bluestem
Clustered bellflower
Wild basil
Giant blue sage
Compass plant
Prairie rosinweed
Insects(4)-
Drone bees
Stink bug
Typical hover fly
Orbweaver
As you can see the amount of plants from the grasses and Forbes plot is incrementally more than the amount of plants in the just grasses plot, though the amount of insects stay the same. This already answers our question enough but let's now look at the grasses and 2x Forbes plot. In the grasses and 2x Forbes it has almost the same amount of kinds of flowers, though we noticed that there were more of each flower, however the amount of insects STILL remained about the same, however the kinds of insects slightly varied in this change.
Reasoning
Reasoning
This data answers our question. The amount of plants DO NOT affect the amount of insects in a plot, however the kind of plants DO affect the kind of insects, but do not affect the amount. Let's look at the data and see how we know this. Firstly, how do we know that the plants don't affect the kind/amount of insects? Well the amount of insects never changed when the amount of plants changed, they stayed relatively the same, around 4 or 5. Even when we went from grasses to grasses and Forbes the amount of insects stayed the same, however the kind of insects did. In the grasses plot we have some longhorns, stink bugs, bees, and typical flies; in the grasses and Forbes plots we still have longhorns and bees, however we also have multiple spiders and a few beetles. The kind of insect changed when the amount of plants did.
Discussion and next step
Now as we all know there will always be human errors we make during experiments. Meaning this data is one 100% accurate, it is simply the best me and my partners could do. My partners and I did not have time to check every single plot in the prairie, meaning we could only look at one plot from each of 3 types, so the numbers are an estimate and not an average. Another possible error in our data is the fact that while walking in the plots we could scare some smaller bugs away. The bugs were hard to find already and the fact that we are rustling around in the plants does not help. The bugs were difficult to find so take those statistics with a grain of salt. Those are simply the bugs that we could find in the limited time we were out there. If we were to continue this experiment we will find that the grass and plants grow the more the insects and those said plants have an environment in conclusion if we were to continue this experiment we would find more insects.
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