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Franklin Elementary School
Teacher: Suzette McCormick
Scientist: Shinichi Asao
Question: What kind of insects live on both natural and invasive plants?
Hypothesis: We believe we will find a variety of animals and insects on both natural and invasive plants.
Methods:
Discussed native and invasive plants in the classroom with our scientist
Took a field trip to Rocky Nook Park to make observations
Broke into seven groups and observed different kinds of trees and insects
Charted all the animals and insects we could find
Tallied and graphed results
Results: We discovered that the native plants have more insects on them than the invasive plants. The live oak had more diversity of animals that the sycamore or Vinca major. There were 174 ants on five different kinds of Live Oak trees. There were 6 cicada, 209 lychen, 5 lady bugs, 4 worms, 13 caterpillars, 15 spiders, 6 rolly polly, 1 beetle and a honey bee hive.
The Vinca major had 1 ladybug, 2 caterpillars, and 5 spiders.
The sycamore only had 1 worm, 3 spiders and 1 honeybee. Discussion: There was a lot of diversity on the live oak tree which is native to this area. We observed more live oak trees than Vinca major or sycamore. We found a lot of ants! We did not see a lot of diversity on any of the plants we observed. We discovered a millipede near a rock near a live oak.
Conclusion: Our question has been answered by doing this project. Our answer is that insects prefer a live oak tree because it is a native plant. It also depends on the environment. But, some insects like to live on invasive plants also. |
