Insect Responses to Odour Stimulus

Researchers performed this experiment on York University's grassland on campus beside Danby Woods.The purpose of this research was to see if insects were attracted to different types of odour stimuli. This experiment was replicated on 2 seperate days to account for temperature and sunlight differences. The experiments were performed on Day 1 (15/10/2014) and Day 2 (22/10/2014). Day 1 was cloudy and rainy (12 degrees Celsius), Day 2 was sunny and not cloudy (15 degrees Celsius). Also on both days the treatment was placed on different colours of paper to also account for insect prefrence on colour (Day 1 was white and Day 2 was brown). Grass was soaked in water (control), perfume, salt, or sugar (5% concentration) and placed on white paper (Day 1) and brown paper (Day 2). These treatments were placed together in a random area in a grassland in a random order. Each station was seperated by 8 meters. And there was 3 stations per day for more accurate results. At 20 minute intervals researchers recorded the number of insects present on each treatment.