Lab 4: Biol2050 The Effect of Pan Colour and Floral Presence on Insect Abundance

This experiment was conducted for the 4th biol2050 lab, and it took place on Thursday October 15th 2015, and Thursday October 22nd 2015 in the grassland at York University from 3-5pm. The weather during the first week of the experiment, Thursday October 15th, 2015 was 17 degrees Celsius, with a wind speed of 23km/h. When the wind speed was found on the Beaufort scale, it was given a beaufort number of 5, which corresponded to Fresh Breeze in seaman's term. The beginning of the lab started with light rain, which turned into very heavy rain by the end of the experiment. The weather during the second week of the experiment, Thursday October 22nd, 2015 was 14 degrees Celsius, with a wind speed of 29km/h. When the wind speed was found on the Beaufort scale, it was given a beaufort number of 6, which corresponded to Strong Breeze in seaman's term. Group Members: Simranjit Kang, Ava Kamali, Katrin Chapkis, Jennifer Mariathas The purpose of this experiment was to test whether pan colour, and floral presence had an effect on the insect abundance found in the pans. Once all group members had reached the grassland at York University, they visually decided on the location they would use for floral presence, and for no floral presence. For the location to have been considered with floral presence, it would have needed to contain 20+ flowers within a 4 meter transect. For the location to have been considered with no floral presence, it would have needed to contain no flowers within a 4 meter transect. Two transect tapes were used, 1 in the location with floral presence, and one in the location without floral presence. Once the locations were decided, the group members lined the transects 4 meters long in each location. Perpendicular to each meter on the transect, the group members lined up 3 pans, specifically in the order of white, blue, and yellow at each location. This meant that there would be a total of 12 (4 of each colour) pans in each location. Next, soapy water was added halfway in each pan in order to trap the insects, and keep them there until the experiment had finished. In both locations of the grassland, there was very minimal vegetation, and the ground was filled with tall grass, which provided a shady environment. Due to this circumstance, there may have been a decrease in the amount of insects trapped, since they may have not been able to see the pans. The experiment also fell out on days that contained heavy rain, and strong winds, and this may have affected the number of insects indentified. After this, the group waited 2 hours to achieve more accurate results. A timer was set on one of the group member's phone for 2 hours, and after the 2 hours had passed the group members collected the experiment's data. At each location, all of the group members were responsible for carefully observing the insect abundance in each of the pans to decrease the likelihood of possible errors in miscalculating. Each group member wrote down the results of the insect abundance in the 24 pans on a sheet of paper using a pen or pencil. This experiment was repeated once more on Thursday October 22, 2015. It was repeated in order to increase the chances of precision, and accuracy. The sample size of this experiment was 24 replicates for the first week of the experiment (12 in the location with floral presence and 12 in the location without floral presence), and 24 replicates (12 in the location with floral presence and 12 in the location without floral presence) for the second week of the experiment for a total sample size of 48.