Our RESEARCH DESIGN is modeled after a paper that studied spider web production in terms of web mass and temperatures. Fruit flies were dropped into the web with an relatively complex apparatus, beyond the scope of our project, so our inverted cup and straw apparatus will serve as a practical substitute. The methods we will follow also closely resemble Barghusen’s paper. We will run the experiment over the course of five days because six days gave indicative results in one of the papers we studied (Barghusen et al). A temperature gradient was created using Aluminum pans and a hot plate. Our experiment will create a similar gradient using styrofoam boxes and a heat lamp for the warm condition and ice for the cold condition. The Barghusen paper found that web mass was significantly lighter in the colder conditions, so we expect similar results.
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