Ecology Research Project by The Good Boys

こんにちは, みなさん! It’s us, the good boys, back bringing the good news to you. For our research project, we decided we wanted to investigate competition among species, specifically aphids. They are small sap-sucking insects that feed on the phloem of plants. To do this, we tested competition between two species of aphids by placing two species of aphids on the same plant, and comparing their population to control groups. This would tell us if one aphid is dominant, or if they are just co-existing. Christina spent grueling hours hunting for aphids, and her work was much appreciated. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ

To keep the aphids on the plants, however was a bit of a challenge, so we came up with a DIY plastic cylinder to cover the pea plant, with mesh to cover the top. Here are a few of the cylinders that we made:

Here is one of our pea plants. We took off some leaves and plants so that each plant would have the same amount of leaves and plants for consistency.

To get the aphids on the plant, we used a paint brush so that the aphids would be comfortable for the ride:

Here is grand master Vlad placing aphids on the pea plants. It took him forever to separate the two species of aphids. Good job, Vlad!

Here is a close up of Vlad finding the aphids through the dissecting microscope:

Enjoy more of these pictures of Vlad as he counts and moves these aphids:

And after all that work, here are our finished products:

We plan to observe the aphid counts every two days or so, and hope that we find something interesting. This could explain if a particular species was declining in population in the wild, so maybe we could find that out! さようなら!