Sow Bug Lab

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Introduction: Sow Bugs, small land crustaceans, have oval bodies with armor like plating, live in humid and cool environments such as logs and leaf litter, and are chosen to be used to test for taxis, movement towards or away from a stimulus. Both chemotaxis, movement in response to chemicals, and phototaxis, movement in response to light, are tested in this experimental procedure. The purpose of this experiment is to test the response of Sow Bugs to a light and a chemical source, showing whether they exhibit taxis to a certain stimulus. Body spray was used because it exhibited all the attributes of a potential chemical substance. It has color and smell and being in a liquid and a gas form. The negative control is exhibited when the Sow Bugs reacted to the stimulus of the experiment. The stimulus acts as the variable of the experiment. The hypothesized results show that the Sow Bugs would exhibit taxis to the light by running from the source and not exhibit taxis when tested with the chemical. Discussion/ Analysis: Phototaxis was exhibited by the Sow Bugs. This is shown by the higher number of specimen attracted to the darkness versus the lower number of specimen remaining in the light. The results are supportive to the hypothesis where the Sow Bugs exhibited significant phototaxis shown by the change in distance from the stimulus over a period of time. The results of the chemotaxis experiment disprove our hypothesis where the Sow Bugs did exhibit chemotaxis and reacted to the chemical stimulus. There are several factors that could attribute to a data differential throughout the experiment. Factors such as the intensity of light or the amount/ concentration of the chemical could gave altered the way that the sow bugs react tot a certain

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