Mr. Posgais Biology II class often pondered the thought of insectsattraction to certain colors on flowers.
Well, on September 14, 1999, we decided toexperiment and figure out which colors on flowers were more dominant overothers. Our Biology class divided up into groups of two and three people. Eachgroup took a different colored piece of poster board. One person in each groupapplied Tangle Trap to the twelve by nine inch area and stapled each board to apiece of lattice. We then took the lattice outside, about fifty feet from the schoolbuilding and left it outdoors for about forty-eight hours.
When we retrieved ourlattice, we counted the number of insects on each board and proved our hypothesis,that insects prefer yellow flowers and white flowers over the other colors, to beDuring the week of September 13, through September 17, Mr. PosgaisBiology II class carried out an interesting experiment involving insects and theirPollination is vital to insect and flower reproduction. Birds and insects driftfrom flower to flower, selecting the appropriate flavor of their choice to carry ontheir necessary task of nature. With the way nature works, this process sounds to besimple; however, it is much more complicated and in a sense, more unbelievablethan you could ever imagine. A bird or insect flies or walks up into the flower toreach the pollen.
As time moves o, that same bird and/or insect will move on tosomething else and carry the pollen with it. The pollen being transferred like this isa major factor in the flower reproduction system. My class came up with the hypothesis that the insects would be mostattracted to the colors of yellow and white. Our hypothesis was proved to be truewhen we brought in the lattice containing all of the individual colored poster boardpieces.
The results were not surprising to us, as white had gathered eighty threeinsects and yellow gathering eighty. These colors together almost are more than therest of the colors insect amount combined. red, blue, yellow, white, purple, green, black, orange, and hot pinkEveryone in the class first divided up into groups of three and four people. Each group chose a 14 by 11 piece of poster board of a different color. Theytook the ruler and marked off with the pencil, approximately a one inch border forhandling.
With the putty knife at hand, they applied the Tangle Trap to the middleof the board, being careful not to let it get on their hands or clothing. Handling thepiece of poster board by the one inch border on the sides, each group carefully tooktheir board and stapled it to the lattice. The lattice was then placed outside (beingheld up by the two sticks) with all nine different colored poster boards stapled onit, with each piece having a 12 by 9 available trapping space. After aboutforty-eight hours, they retrieved the lattice and each group took back their assignedcolor and counted the number of insects on it.
After retrieving our lattice board from outside, and carefully counting overand over, for reassurance, the total amount of insects on each piece of poster board,and the different types, our class came to the final conclusion that yellow, white,and red were the more dominant colors in this particular experiment. Although, thisdid not exactly match our hypothesis, the results were close. Also, you must take in to consideration when reading this conclusion that weonly made one trial. During a normal experiment, there should be more than onetest. Afterall, if is hard to determine the facts of nature with multiple experiments,There could also be many other factors which affected our results.
Anexample would be that not everyone calculated exactly a one inch border from thesides of their poster board. Some people may have put the Tangle Trap on theirboard thicker than others, which would lead to more or less insects sticking to theirparticular poster board. Another factor may be that the group who was in charge ofthe purple poster board had to color a plain white piece. Meaning that the boardmay not be completely purple, and the insects may be attracted to the white spotsBibliography:
