Today I set up the vials for the F2 generation of my fruit flies. I did the same egsact thing I did with the theee F1 Generation, but instead I used red food coloring. I need to work on my research paper, and will see ms. weissman tomorrow. Today i did not get to take data. I feel like my experiment in this genreration is ruined due to the6 day weekend, but i an optoistic about this next one. I pla to transfer the bug larva monday, so i'll have a week to observe.
This is my research paper:
Research Paper:
The topic that is being studied is the affect of air pollution on insect development. It is a very important issue that needs to be addressed. If air pollution has an affect on insects and their development, then it could affect humans, and also potentially the entire global ecosystem! This could happen easily if humans are not careful about air pollution. Though insects do not seem important compared to the rest of the world, they are the base of the food chain, and play a very important role in the ecosystem. This is because in an environment everything affects everything. If air pollution affects insect development, then animals that eat insects (such as frogs) could lose their food, and start to die out. Then animals that eat frogs (such snakes, lizards, birds, and small animals like hedge hogs) could lose food and start to die out, and so on. Everything affects everything in the food chain. A small problem could work its way up and wreck an entire ecosystem. If air pollution is causing a major problem with insects, then there could end up being a major problem with humans and the worldwide environment. That is why it is so important that the affect of air pollution on insects be studied.
The way to study this topic is by conducting an experiment that studies the affect of different levels of smoke on Drosophila melanogaster development. The independent variable will be different levels of smoke, which is a collection of airborne solid and liquid particles and gases that are emitted when combustion takes place. The make-up of smoke depends on what kind of a fuel is burning (“Smoke”, 2010). Smoke is a very good representation for air pollution, because it makes up many different kinds of air pollution, in particular black carbon air pollution, which is smoke from factories and other burning fuel (“Indoor and Outdoor Air Pollution”, 2010). The dependent variable will be the development of Drosophila melanogaster, otherwise known as fruit flies. Fruit flies are very common insects so they are a good representation of insects in this experiment. Fruit flies are small insects that have red eyes, a tan front portion of their body, and black rings across their back abdomen. They lay many eggs, breed quickly, are easy to take care of, and their life cycle is around 30 days when at 29 °C (84 °F) (“Drosophila melanogaster” 2010). Together these two variables would represent the affect of air pollution of insect development.
The two variables that are being studied are smoke, and fruit fly development. The dependent variable is fruit fly development. The scientific name for fruit fly is Drosophila melanogaster, and they are incredibly common insects. A fruit fly has four stages in life: egg, larva, pupa, and adult (“Life Cycle of a Fruit Fly”, 2010). Their nickname fruit fly originates from the fact they are often found around fruit that has been left alone, or is going bad. They do this because when a female fruit fly is ready to lay eggs, she lays them in moist fermenting food, or other organic decomposing materials. This is because once a larva (which is a baby insect) emerges from its egg; it will feed on the sugar from the material it was laid in, and also on the microorganisms that are decomposing that material (“Drosophila melanogaster” 2010). The development of a fruit fly is fairly simple. Once a fruit fly hatches, it goes through two molting periods, in which many parts are shed. Before and after these times of growth, a larva is called an instar, and there are three times when they are called that. After the third instar, the pauperism (which is the outer shell of the bug) becomes harder and darker than before. Within the pauperism is where the metamorphis takes place, which is when a larva turns into an adult. A person can tell when a fly is about to emerge from the puparium when it darkens. Once the metamorphis is completed, the new adult fly pushes it’s way out of the front end of the pauperism. Right after the adult fly emerges it is light with a long abdomen and folded wings, but a few hours later the fly turns darker, it spreads out its wings, and its abdomen becomes rounder. About 48 hours after a female fly emerges it can lay eggs, and the process begins again. A fly spends 8 days as an egg and in larval stages, then 6 days in the pupal stages. Its life span is several weeks and at normal room temperature (21 Co). A whole new population of fruit flies can be created in two weeks (“Life Cycle of a Fruit Fly”, 2010).
Varying levels of smoke is the independent variable. The definition of smoke is: “the gaseous products of burning materials especially of organic origin made visible by the presence of small particles of carbon” (“smoke”, 2010). To state that differently, it is the collection of airborne solid and liquid particles and gases. It occurs when a material undergoes combustion, and the nature of it depends on what is burning. Fires that have large amounts of oxygen around them burn at higher temperatures and they emit a smaller amount of smoke. Fires that burn with a lack of oxygen produce a much larger palette of compounds, and many of those compounds are toxic. Smoke can be visible or invisible to the naked eye, depending on the size of the particles. A good example of this is when you toast a piece of bread in a toaster. As the bread heats up, the products of combustion begin to get larger. The particles that are produced by the toast at first are invisible, but if the toast burns, the particles become visible. Smoke also can also be incredibly dangerous. In an average house fire for example, the smoke contains hundreds and hundreds of different chemicals and fumes. Usually the damage on the house is much greater from the smoke then from, the heat of the fire (“Smoke”, 2010).
The relationship between abiotic factors and biotic factors in the environment is very important. An abiotic factor is “Any of the nonliving factors that make up the abiotic environment in which living organisms occur.”(“abiotic factors”, 2004) To put it more simply, anything in an environment that is not living and didn’t come from something living is abiotic (for example, a nut is not abiotic because it comes from a tree). There are many examples of abiotic factors such as: temperature, weather, fire, gas, natural disasters (floods, earth quakes), elevation, UV rays, acid rain, humidity, air pollution, air pressure, the list goes on and on, and none of then come form something living. A biotic factor is “Any of the factors of an organism's environment that consist of other living organisms and together make up the biotic environment” (“biotic factors”, 2004) it is the opposite of an abiotic factor, because it is anything in an environment that is living and/or did come from something living (for example, a nut is biotic). Examples of biotic factors are: food (or lack of food), disease, predation, old age, injury, and so on. These two different kinds of factors are incredibly important in ecosystems.
In the experiment that is being conducted, smoke is the abiotic factor, and fruit fly development is the biotic factor. Just like in any environment, the abiotic factor affects the biotic factor. Some examples of this are when it is cold outside and a plant freezes and dies, or if there is not enough CO2 in the air and a plant dies because it cannot go through photosynthesis and produce glucose. Biotic factors are always affected by abiotic factors. In this experiment, the smoke affects the fruit fly development. This relationship is very important, because if smoke affects fruit flies it could end up affecting humans. That is because of the way the food chain works. First, stop being so specific and change the dependent variable of fruit flies to insects in general. Also, remember smoke is in many different kinds of air pollutions. Because of this, if smoke affects fruit flies and their development, then many different kinds of air pollution could affect insects and their development. If insects are affected and/or are developing differently due to air pollution, then their predators such as birds might lose a major source of food, because what they had been eating is no longer as common or has changed in a way that birds aren’t adapted to dealing with. Because of this lose of food birds and their survival rate could begin to diminish. Then animals that eat birds, like foxes, could lose their food source and their population could begin to diminish. Then the population of animals that eat foxes start to diminish, and its predator loses food, and so on and so on. It just works its way up the food chain, knocking everything out of balance. Eventually the entire global ecosystem could be trashed! So even though the change in insect development may seem like a minor problem, in the long run it can lead to a major issue.
This experiment is being studied for one reason. To figure out if air pollution has a major effect on ecosystems, and could eventually end up affecting the entire global eco-system. The independent variable is smoke, because smoke is a common component in air pollution, and it is a safe clean way to represent air pollution in an experiment. The dependent variable is fruit flies, because they are common insects that are easy to handle with large reproductive potential, and that is why they are good representatives for insects in general. If the smoke affects fruit fly development, then it can be assumed that air pollution can affect insect development. If insect development is compromised, then thousands of ecosystems could be destroyed! So, though it may not seem like it at first, the study of the affect of smoke on fruit fly development is incredibly important to our global ecosystem. That is why it is being studied.
References
“abiotic factor.” A Dictionary of Biology. 2004. Retrieved January 19, 2010 from E. (2004). abiotic factor. Retrieved January 19, 2010, from Encyclopedia.com database.
Air Pollution. (n.d.). Retrieved January 13, 2010, from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory website: http://www.lbl.gov/Education/ELSI/pollution-main.html
Atkinson, E. (2009, February 21). What is Smoke? Retrieved from http://chestofbooks.com/reference/The-New-Student-s-Reference-Work-Vol5/What-Is-Smoke.html
biotic factors. (2004). Retrieved January 19, 2010, from A Dictionary of Biology website: http://www.encyclopedia.com
Drosophila melanogaster [ basic imformation about fruit flies]. (n.d.). Retrieved January 6, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophila_melanogaster
Drosophila melanogaster. (n.d.). Retrieved January 6, 2010, from http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/D/Drosophila.html
Life Cycle of the Fruit Fly. (n.d.). Retrieved January 9, 2010, from Woodrow Wilson Biology Institute website: http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/bi/1994/life_cycle.html
Smoke. (n.d.). Retrieved January 8, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/
Smoke. (n.d.). Retrieved January 17, 2010, from Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. website: http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/smoke
Toxic Smoke. (n.d.). Retrieved January 14, 2010, from PubMed U.S. National Library of Medicine website: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3593498
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