Pan trap experiment: Week 4

The lab was conducted by myself and 3 peers: Hassan, Enrique and Brad. The objective of the pan trap experiment, was to observe the amount of insects that were attracted and trapped in the 20 bowls in the woodlot and grassland area. It was hypothesized that the woodlot would show an increased amount of insects within the bowls then the bowls in the grasslands because of the vast amount of insects on the ground and in the trees in the forests which were observed visually. For the woodlot, Hassan and I filled 10 bowls (4 white, 5 yellow, 1 blue) with soapy water to approximately half of the bowl. The soapy water was used to trap the insects in the bowls in order to observe and record results. We then walked to the edge of the woodlot and placed the bowls of random color approximately a foot (7 feet) away from eachother around a decaying tree in an area with low light and lots of plants. We left the 10 bowls as they were for approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes.Observations collected sooner then anticipated (after 2 hours) due to environmental conditions. We then went to the grasslands and filled 10 bowls (6 blue, 4 white) with soapy water half way. We walked to the edge of the grassland in an open area with a few plants and placed the bowls of random color approximately a foot (7 feet) away from eachother. We left the 10 bowls as they were for approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes. We returned and first observed and recorded the bowl color and amount of insects in each bowl. We did the same for grasslands. The insects were released and the soapy water was poured out and the bowls were retrieved.