Proposal Worksheet for Group Project, Part 1 & 2

This is a group assignment, which means that one person will turn in the completed worksheet on behalf of the group. Everyone will get the same grade on the worksheet, and everyone is responsible for the quality of the work submitted (including issues like plagiarism).

Evaluation Criteria & Deadlines

Draft of Part 2: A complete draft of Proposal Worksheet, Parts 1 & 2 is due at 11:59pm two days before Lab 13. The draft is worth 5pts and will be graded for completion.

Final Compiled Proposal: Your group will submit a revised Proposal Worksheet (Parts 1 & 2) at 11:59pm two days before Lab 15. This final Proposal Worksheet (Parts 1 & 2) is worth 40pts and will be graded for the following criteria:

Research topic, hypothesis, and prediction are clear and well-justified

Study design is complete and clearly explained

Study design appropriately addresses research hypothesis & prediction

Procedure is well-planned and complete

Excel Workbook with metadata is well-planned and complete

Graph of expected results is well-formatted and consistent with the prediction

Proposal lacks typos and other writing errors

Annotated bibliography is complete, accurate, and contains useful notes

PART 1: General project details

Please insert your answers from the draft of Part 1 that you already completed.

Identify each independent variable in your study by completing the table below. Add extra rows to the table if your study has more than one independent variable.

Independent variable description

Be as complete in your description as possible Potential values

List the potential values for the variable Categorical or quantitative?

Morph of adult male bean beetle Dispersal or sedentary categorical

Identify each dependent variable in your study by completing the table below. Add extra rows to the table if your study has more than one dependent variable.

Dependent variable description

Be as complete in your description as possible Potential values

List the potential values for the variable Categorical or quantitative?

Number of eggs laid by adult female sedentary bean beetle 0 to infinity quantitative

Number of successful copulations

0 to infinity quantitative

What are your study subjects? Be as precise as possible.

Adult sedentary female bean beetles

What is your hypothesis? If you have multiple independent or dependent variables, provide separate hypotheses for each.

Morph of adult male bean beetles affects number of eggs laid by adult female sedentary bean beetle

Morph of adult male bean beetles affects the number of successful copulations with adult female sedentary bean beetle

What is your prediction? If you have multiple independent or dependent variables, provide separate predictions for each.

If morph of adult male bean beetles affects the number of eggs laid by adult female bean beetles, then adult sedentary female bean beetles who mate with adult sedentary male bean beetles will produce more eggs than adult sedentary female bean beetles who mate with adult dispersal male bean beetles.

If morph of adult male bean beetles affects the number of successful copulations with adult female sedentary bean beetles, then adult female sedentary bean beetles that copulate with adult male sedentary female bean beetles will have more successful copulations than adult female sedentary bean beetles who copulate with adult male dispersal bean beetles.

Explain the rationale for each prediction. Why do you think this is a reasonable prediction for what will happen? Include at least one citation for each prediction.

Sedentary female bean beetles are known for producing more eggs than dispersal female bean beetles so if sedentary female bean beetles’ mate with male sedentary bean beetles who have similar environmental conditions during development from larvae to the pupa stage, then the sedentary male bean beetles will more likely have more nutrients to provide to the sedentary female bean beetle as opposed to dispersal male bean beetles who share traits with female dispersal bean beetles. The identity of the mate may thus affect female reproductive performance(Arnqvist, Nilsson, Katvala

Sedentary female bean beetles are known to be selective when choosing a mate and will prefer the adult male bean beetle who can provide the most nutrients for the offspring, who we predict will be the sedentary male bean beetle. The effects of multiple mating on female fitness are clearly multifaceted in C. maculatus (see Introduction). Eady et al. (2000) showed that females copulating with multiple males lay more eggs, but have offspring with a lower egg-adult survival, than do those copulating repeatedly with the same male, at least under some conditions.(Arnqvist, Nilsson, Katvala)

Mating rate and fitness in female bean weevils 

Göran Arnqvist, Tina Nilsson, Mari KatvalaBehavioral Ecology, Volume 16, Issue 1, Jan./Feb. 2005, Pages 123–127, https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arh119Published:

 

07 July 2004

Why would a biologist who doesn’t study bean beetles find this topic interesting? Answer this question by connecting your proposal to a “big picture” in biology.

We could see if the population of bean beetles could be increased by mating either adult male dispersal morphs or adult male sedentary morphs with adult female sedentary morphs. We might not be interested in increasing their population in the natural environment, but it may be of use to some question dealing with populations of certain insects such as bees which are considered important to the environment

PART 2: Detailed study design, procedure, and annotated bibliography

DETAILED STUDY DESIGN & PROCEDURE

Is your study an observational study or an experiment? Please explain.

Experimental because the independent variable is being manipulated.

If your study is observational, you may skip to question 11.

What are the treatments in your experiment? List all the treatments and identify them as control or experimental.

Observational

How will you establish your treatments? In other words, what are you going to do to set-up your treatments? For example, if your treatments are 20°C and 30°C, describe how you’ll expose your study subjects to those temperatures.

How are you going to measure the dependent variable(s)? Be as specific as possible. For example, if you are measuring growth rate, I want to know how you will measure growth and how you will calculate growth rate from those data.

We will count the number of eggs seen on the bean through the lens of a microscope.

We will also count the number of successful copulations by adult bean beetles through a microscope.

List at least 10 potentially confounding variables that could impact your measurements of the dependent variable(s).

Variable descriptions

Be as complete in your description as possible Potential values

List the potential values for the variable Categorical or quantitative?

1 Temperature of lab (Celsius) 0 to infinity quantitative

2 Mating history of adult male bean beetle Mated or unmated categorical

3 Mating history of adult female bean beetle Whether or not Mated categorical

4 Condition of bean used for oviposition Used, fresh categorical

5 Temperature of environment raised in 0 to infinity quantitative

6 Oil treatment used on bean Neem oil, sesame oil, untreated categorical

7 Age of adult male bean beetle(days) 0 to infinity quantitative

8 Age of adult female bean beetle(days) 0 to infinity quantitative

9 Type of bean used for oviposition Adzuki, black eyed peas, etc. categorical

10 Sucrose given to adult male bean beetle Sucrose or no sucrose categorical

What is an appropriate sample size?

(n = 20 adult female sedentary bean beetles per group)

Write a detailed procedure for your study. This should be a complete list of steps describing how you would perform your study and control potentially confounding variables.

Use 5.5 cm petri dishes to store bean beetles separating by sex and morph

Place adult female bean beetle in petri dish using tweezers on microscope stage

Place adult male dispersal or sedentary morph using tweezers in with female

If copulation successful after a few minutes when male bean beetle inserts aedeagus into female bean beetle remove both adult bean beetles using tweezers

If copulation not successful after more than 3 attempts replace adult male bean beetle using tweezers

If copulation still not successful replace adult female bean beetle using tweezers

Repeat steps 1-6

Place 20 black eyed beans in petri dish for female bean beetle to lay eggs on

Create a single slide using Microsoft PowerPoint as a visualization of the design for your study. The slide must accurately and completely represent the main components of your study (e.g., treatments, timing, measurements) with clear, appropriate graphics and minimal text.

Upload the PowerPoint slide (.ppt or .pptx) with your proposal worksheet.

Set-up an Excel Workbook that you could use to collect and organize your data. This means (1) label the columns you’ll need and (2) include a completed metadata sheet that provides more details about what data you would report in each column. A template file with the metadata tab has been provided on D2L.

Upload the Excel Workbook (.xls or .xlsx) with your proposal worksheet.

In your Excel Workbook, make a properly formatted graph (with all the components we have practiced!) illustrating what your results would look like if they supported your prediction. The graph must be consistent with your prediction and sample size. You will make up numbers to represent the data, so be sure to include variation so the standard deviation can be calculated.

Upload the Excel Workbook (.xls or .xlsx) with your proposal worksheet. This can be the same file as what you submit for question 15.

What statistical analysis would you perform on your results? Explain why this is appropriate, and be sure to include every test you would run and every reason you would choose it! DO NOT ANALYZE YOUR MADE-UP DATA!

Since we have two quantitative dependent variables and a categorical independent variable, and we are comparing the averages between two groups we will perform a T-test and possibly a Wilcox test.