PURPOSE
The purpose of this experiment was
to determine which flavor ants are most attracted to.
I first became interested in this
idea when I found ants crawling over various food items like a fruit snack
and dog food.
The information gained from this
experiment can help people with ants living in their homes to uncover natural,
effective ant bait. Homeowners with ant problems spend many dollars per
year to try do get rid of ants. It would cost consumers much less just
to use common, around-the-house substances.
HYPOTHESIS
My hypothesis is that the ants will
be most attracted to a sweet flavor rather than the other flavors sour,
salty, bitter, or control (water).
I base my hypothesis on the results
of an interview with an employee of Weaver Exterminating Service who said
that ants are generally attracted to sugar and other sweet compounds. I
also base my hypothesis on personal experiences and encounters that I have
had with ants.
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EXPERIMENT
DESIGN
The constants in this study were:
-Size of bread piece
-Kind of bread
-External temperature of
testing area
-Time of day observations
and measurements are made
-Time of day food was replaced
-Amount of solution on piece
of bread.
-Source of ants
All ants were kept in the same environment
and have equal access to all five flavors.
The manipulated variable was the
flavor of the solution that was dropped on the bread squares.
The responding variable was the number
of ants attracted to each flavor.
To measure the responding variable
I took pictures of the ants at pre-planned time intervals. Then I
took a count of the ants that were at each station in each picture.
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MATERIALS
| QUANTITY |
ITEM DESCRIPTION |
| 200 |
Ants |
| 1 loaf |
White Bread |
| 1 |
Glass Terrarium |
| 1 |
Digital Camera |
| amount n/a |
Sand (for Ants Habitat) |
| amount n/a |
Leaves (for Ants Habitat) |
| 25 squares |
Tin foil (3cm by 3cm) |
| 1 |
Eye dropper |
| 1 |
10 mL Graduated Cylinder |
| 1 |
Magnetic Stirrer |
| 1 |
Water bath (warm) |
500 grams |
Deionized water |
1.0gram |
Sodium Chloride |
5.0grams |
Sucrose |
.15 grams |
Citric acid |
.15 grams |
Caffeine |
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PROCEDURES
A. Preparing the terrarium with a
habitat suitable for ants
1) Put 3 centimeters of sand,
soil and beauty bark mixture in the bottom.
2) Place moist, rotting wood in
random locations inside the terrarium.
3) Spray water on the sand to form
a more suitable sand texture for the ant colony.
B. Preparing the solutions and bread
slices
To achieve the following flavors,
make these solutions by following the next steps.
1) Solution 1: SWEET flavor- 5% Sucrose:
Dissolve 5.0 grams of sucrose into 95.0 grams of deionized water. Warm
up solution to mix.
2) Solution 2: SOUR flavor- 0.15%
Citric Acid: Mix 0.15 grams of citric acid with 99.85 grams of deionized
water. Using a magnetic stirrer, slowly mix the solution.
3) Solution 3: SALTY flavor- 1.0%
Sodium Chloride: Dissolve 1.0 grams of sodium chloride into 99.0 grams
of deionized water. Warm up solution to mix.
4) Solution 4: BITTER flavor- 0.15%
Caffeine: Mix .15 grams of caffeine with 99.85 grams of deionized water.
5) Solution 5: NO flavor (control)-
100% Deionized Water: 100 grams of deionized water.
6) Cut five squares of bread 2cm
by 2cm and (1) centimeter thick.
7) Drop 0.5 milliliter (13 drops)
of sweet solution onto a bread square using an eyedropper.
8) Flip square over and drop 0.5
mL (13 drops) of solution on that side.
9) Repeat steps seven and eight
using the sour, bitter, salty and control solutions on separate pieces
of bread.
10) Cut 25 squares of tin foil each
6cm by 6cm.
11) Place squares of bread on top
of tin foil and put ants into terrarium.
12) Every two hours, record the
number of ants on each bread square, then take 1 picture with the digital
camera.
13) Repeat steps six through eleven
three times each day for five days.
C. Following steps six through eleven,
change the bread squares at each station after 24 hours of exposure to
the ants.
D. Analyzing Data
1) At 1:00, 3:00 and 5:00 pictures
were taken. Names/Dates were added to pictures as soon as they were processed.
2) This process was repeated after
each day with the trial pictures.
3) Averages were taken of each stations
data after the testing period is completely over.
4)
Graph all results.
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RESULTS
The original purpose of this experiment
was to determine which flavor ants were attracted to most.
The results of the experiment were
that the ants were attracted to the sweet flavored bread square more than
any of the other flavors, but on a rare occasion they would visit the sour,
bitter, and salty squares. They also did not visit the control (water)
station often, in fact I only observed one ant at this station in the entire
experiment.
Please take a look at the graph to
see the results.
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CONCLUSION
My hypothesis was that the ants would
prefer the sweet flavor to the other flavors: sour, bitter, salty, and
control.
The results indicate that this hypothesis
should be accepted.
Because of the results of this experiment,
I wonder if the ants would prefer a sweet liquid to a sweet flavored solid.
I also wonder if this same result would occur for other "pest" insects,
like termites or cockroaches.
If I were to conduct this project
again I would try different substances and carriers for the different flavors.
I might have attempted to determine whether the ants preferred a viscous
(gel-like) liquid versus a non-viscous (watery) liquid. Observing
more ants and observing them for a longer duration of time would make the
experiment more reliable.
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|
RESEARCH
REPORT
INTRODUCTION
Ants belong
to an order of insects called Hymenoptera; this group also includes bees,
wasps, and sawflies. They belong to the insect family Formicidae meaning
ant family. There are over 60 genre existing in North America comprising
hundreds of different species on this continent alone.
ANTS
Ant Species
There are
many different kinds of ants all over the world. Some kinds of ants among
the best known are: fire ants, army ants, carpenter ants, driver ants,
harvester ants, weaver ants, fungus- gardening ants, aphid- tending ants,
honeypot ants, and acacia ants.
Habitat
Ants can be
found in many places such as soil, leaf litter, rotting wood and dead trees.
Ants live all over the world, except for the Arctic and Antarctic and some
islands, also on the coldest mountain tops. They are most abundant in the
tropical rainforests and other tropical regions.
Colony Life
All ants are
social. In fact they are the only insects in which all species are social.
Large groups of ants live in colonies or communities together. In
the majority of ants, colonies are families or groups of related families.
These groups consist of one or more queens, who rule the colony, and males,
whose only job is to fertilize the queen and then die soon after. The workers
in the colony are only females. These workers are divided into several
working classes including: enlargement and repair of the nest, taking care
of the larvae, tending to the queen, defending the colony, and foraging
for food.
Anatomy
The shape
of the ant head can be oval shaped, spherical, triangular or even rectangular;
it differs among species. All ants have an opening in the back of their
head, through which the beginning of the digestive tract, nerves and blood
pass through. Inside the mouth are three different parts. The mandibles,
or jaws, are long and broad and are toothed, or serrated. Ants use their
mandibles for collecting and carrying food, digging, building nests, cutting
and fighting. The maxillae, or lower jaws, are used to extract liquids
from foods. Ants use their tongues for sucking up the liquid food. Also
two pairs of slender palpi are inside the mouth, that resemble antennae,
and play an important role in eating.
Ants
have two compound eyes each are made of light-sensitive compartments called
ommatidia. Other types of ants have three simple eyes called ocelli on
the tops of their heads. Different species have developed sight, but some
are completely blind. Vision is rather unimportant to ants because they
spend much of their time underground anyway.
At the front
of the head is a pair of antennae, which contain organs of taste, smell
and touch.
Most ants
antennae are elbow-shaped, somewhat like a human arm. An ants main source
of information is its pair of antennae. Ants use their antennae to find
out about their surroundings.
Joined to the
head is the middle part of the body known as the alitrunk. Attached to
the alitrunk are three pairs of legs. Each leg is jointed and has a claw
at the end; used for gripping hard to grasp surfaces. The legs are not
only used for walking and running, but also more skillful tasks, including
handling food and carrying supplies. The two front legs have miniature
combs used for cleaning the ant and its antennae. In males and young queens,
the alitrunk holds two pairs of wings inside.
Just behind
the alitrunk is the narrow petiole. The petiole is usually a two- segmented
section that appears to be a waist. This body part aids the ant when it
is going through winding underground passageways.
The gaster
is the hindmost section of the ant. The gaster contains the heart, most
of the digestive system, the reproductive system and the excretory system.
When an ants digestive system is full of food, the gaster expands by ballooning
out.
Feeding
Some and species
hunt different insects, others collect seeds. Honeypot ants cultivate certain
insects that the ants "milk" in order to obtain a sweet substance known
as honeydew. A few species even grow their own fungi gardens to feed upon.
Digestion
Adult ants
are able to digest only liquid foods. Ants that obtain food from solids
first have to mix digestive juices into the food to help dissolve it, then
use their tongues to lap up the resulting juices and semiliquid food. Inside
the mouth, any leftover solid foods enter a chamber beneath the mouth opening.
Within the chamber lies a series of screens, which filter out the solid
food and turn it into a solid pellet that the ant soon removes from its
mouth. From the mouth, the food is passed into an organ called the crop,
which is an expandable sack in which liquids can be stored for long periods
of time without being digested. Once the ant reaches the colony it regurgitates
most of the food for other workers to eat. A valve called the proventriculus
in the inner section of the crop lets a trickle of food pass into the ants
mid-gut, where it can be digested.
SOLUTION COMPONENTS
-
Sucrose
was added to deionized water, to obtain a sweet flavor.
-
When mixed
with deionized water, Sodium chloride created a salty flavor.
-
Citric acid
added to deionized water made a sour flavor.
-
When Caffeine
was mixed with deionized water, it resulted in a bitter flavor.
-
Deionized water
was the substance that was considered control
-
SUMMARY
Although ants
are sometimes considered a household pest, they are able to perform many
necessary functions inside ecosystems. Ants turn soil, move nutrients and
organic matter, scatter seeds, serve as food for larger animals, and sometimes
pollinate flowers. Many species dig underground nests with several openings
and passageways. Air and water can pass through these tunnels, providing
oxygen and moisture for plant roots. Ants play a very important part in
our world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
All About Ants
[online] available
http://www.infowest.com/personal/l/life/aants.htm
December 20,1999
Ants [online]
available http://www.letsfindout.com/subjects/bug/rficrpna.html
October 19,1999
Ants [online]
available http://www.lingolex.com/ants.htm
November 9,1999
Carlin, Norman
F. "Ant" WorldBook Encyclopedia, 1995 Vol. 1-A Pp. 520-528
Greenland,
Caroline. "Ants" Natures Children Series: Sherman Turnpike, Danbury, CT.,
Grolier Educational Corporation, 1986
Tschinkel,
Walter R. "Ant" Microsoft Encarta 2000, 2000 |
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