Turn Alternation Behaviour In Woodlice? Can Some Help Me With This Please.

[kc29]

Practical instruction

Although woodlice often respond to gradients of light, temperature and humidity, it is self-evident that these responses do not account for their behaviour in the wild. An additional factor might be turn alternation, which could provide a crude course correction if the animal is deflected from its chosen path.

To test the hypothesis that woodlice may orientate by turn alternation, you are provided with perspex mazes. These can be used, in conjunction with perspex blocks, to force the animal to take left or right turns, after which the animal is allowed to make a free choice (left or right) at a junction. Using one animal at a time (take care not to damage the animals), place in the maze and place a perspex block in the appropriate position to force the animal to turn left or right. When the animal reaches the T-junction, record whether it turns in the SAME, or OPPOSITE, direction as the forced turn. Repeat this experiment 20 times, using a fresh animal each time to avoid any possible learned behaviour. Return used animals to the container provided. Be aware that there are several possible sources of error in such a simple experiment. For example, the woodlice may be following small light gradients. To avoid this, reorientate the maze randomly between runs.

Secondly, to avoid any handedness in woodlice, successive runs should alternate between forced left and forced right turns. Finally, you should be aware that behaviour of woodlice in successive runs might be influenced by pheromone production - how might this effect be minimised or negated. How might you elegantly devise an experiment to show the existence of pheromone trails?

Try to think of a suitable statistical test, to prove or disprove the null hypothesis that woodlice do not exhibit turn alternation behaviour.

[Kidas]

This site is not set up to provide answers to homework assignments.

There are essay sites on the internet that will do that for you for a fee. Though the use of such paid-for answers is, in my opinion, ethically questionable

Because this site is free to use, many students have posed questions that are, in reality homework assignments. You are not the first.

Those of us who have gone through some semblance of an education process have gained some appreciation of the lengths your teachers go to in their efforts to persuade students to think for themselves.

If you are seeking some clarity on the question, then you should be thinking of practical measures to eliminate experimental bias from the set-up, as suggested in the question.

The final paragraph is seeking ideas for experimental practice that might deliver a statistically valid result, such as an estimate of the number of times the experiment should be run, together with the statistical analysis that produced your estimate of the number of runs.

Good luck :)