[B1]Lab 5

Lotka Voltaire

Biology 102 L3

23056859

INTRODUCTION

[B2]It’s a bright sunny day and you and your significant other [B3]are enjoying a nice picnic. You set out some foods: coffee, some sugar for the coffee, and some salted beef jerky. You stare in amazement as an army of ants approach your food. You scrambling [B4]thinking your entire picnic is about to be lost and accidentally spill the sugar in your haste to defend what is rightfully yours. Bewildered you watch as the column of invaders changes direction and only plunders the sugar. You stare in fascination as their tiny jaws quickly take up the sugar and with grit and resolve they turn around and mach back to their dark and dank underground lair. Why would they avoid the feast offered to them and take only the sugar? This study attempts to answer this question by looking at what ants eat in a scientific manner.[B5]

[B6]MATERIALS

10 pre made terrariums,1 L deionized water, 5 grams sugar, 15g citric acid, 1g NaCl, 15g ground Nabob coffee beans, 1 piece of white bread, 1 pipette, 1 scale, and a clock. [B7]

METHODS

I cut out bread squares while my partner made the five different solutions. My partner put [B8]the solutions on bread squares and put them into the terrarium. One day later I checked to see how much the ants ate. It appeared as if they ate only the sweet bread solution and left the others alone[B9]. My partner checked the weight of the squares while I recorded it and did the stats on them[B10]. [B11]

RESULTS

The [B12]ants ate lots of the sweet solution and none [B13]of the other solutions. The ants like sugar more because it is an easy to[B14] to get and consume food. Ants also like sugar because it tastes good to them! [B15]

DISCUSSION

The ants liked the sweet solution and this showed that we had proven our hypothesis that ants like to eat sweet food and not other foods. The ants appeared to like the sugar more because [B16]they looked way happier [B17]when they were eating the sugar. They appeared to walk faster and move around more when they were feeding on sugar. [B18]Feeding on bitter solutions made the ants bitter,[B19]like my ex-girl friend who can never let the past go. [B20]The ants preferred the sugar because it tastes good and gives them a sugar rush, which is in my opinion the secret behind their great strength. Ants can life [B21]up to ten times their body weight [B22]and a sugar rush would really explain this! The figure shows that the ants liked the sugar and nothing else[B23]!

The ants may like the sugar solution so much because it has preservatives in it. Ants have a very hard exoskeleton that protects the ants from the sun and damage from bad bugs. Preservatives may make this exoskeleton stronger and sustain more damage from bugs and sun!

[B24]My partnermade numerous mistakes during this experiment. He spilled the bitter solution into the sour solution and used it anyway. He also sneezed into the terrarium possibly infecting the food and ants. Next time I will not work with this guy and perhaps work with the very beautiful blonde girl who works beside me (If you could some how arrange that I would really appreciate it!).[B25]Also next time I would read the lab before coming to class to make sure that I know what I’m doing and not be so lost and confused. [B26][B27]

CONCLUSION

Ants like sugar cause its good! Its not surprising that ants like sugar as humans like sugar and as we have all evolved from the same ancestor millions of years ago it is no surprise that we all like sugar. Sugar is a comfort food that everyone enjoys especially in times of stress. An ants life is very stressful (as shown by the movie by the same title) and they would enjoy sugar as a comfort food.

[B28]LITERATURE CITED

[B29]Leaf damage and associated cues induce aggressive ant recruitment in a neotropical ant plant By Agrawal in 1998.[B30]

[B31]

[B1]Needs to include more specific detail about the study. Completely useless title.

[B2]Include the TA’s name.

[B3]Missing an abstract.

[B4]scramble

[B5]Gives no back ground information specific or general. Does not introduce the objective or hypothesis. Does not describe the species used or, the significance of the study. Does not give reasons behind hypothesis.

[B6]To flowery and unspecific!

[B7]Do not list your materials!

[B8]Do not need to specify whodid what.

[B9]This belongs in the results section. The organization of this paper is horrible!

[B10]Specify what stats!

[B11]Does not give enough detail into how to make the solutions and how the methods were preformed. You could not duplicate this study based on this description.

[B12]Mention the statistics and describe the general trend of the data and then some specific information on how they differ.

[B13]Not totally accurate.

[B14] There should be no color, no grid lines, no background, no legend, there is no Y axis label, the X axis label is not descriptive enough and lacks units, the title should be at the bottom and should include WAY more detail and include a figure number, there is no standard deviation bars, and they did not take an average but included all Data. They compound this error by talking about means and standard deviations in the paper when there is no such statistic on there graph or presented in the paper.

[B15]This is interpretation it belongs in the discussion section. They should also back up their facts, and how do we know what tastes good to an ant?

[B16]Need to mention the results and the statistics and how they support your findings. Need to restate objective and hypothesis and if they were meet or supported.

[B17]How can you prove this?

[B18]Why use observational data when you have quantifiable data to use?

[B19]Not supported by the data.

[B20]Not appropriate for a scientific paper.

[B21]Wrong word

[B22]Cite this!

[B23]Not really accurate.

[B24]Need to back up ideas with facts and information.

[B25]Not appropriate for ANY paper!

[B26]They did not offer any real explanation for their results. They did not offer any support from literature or compare their findings to other studies.

[B27]These are not the mistakes to mention! Be more specific and talk about how to improve the study and methods. Go on to describe how future studies can avoid your mistakes and build upon your findings!

[B28]A good conclusion should summarize what you did, what you found, the significance of it and how to move on!

[B29]Why is this here when they did not cite anything in the body of the paper?

[B30]This format is all wrong

[B31]Never cite web sites! If you use online journals that is ok but this is not the format for those!