(4101) Sound off to Insect Pests!
Amandia Bouzinelos
Kenner CVI
NO PHOTO AVAILABLE


Abstract


Purpose:

To see what was the effect of exposing house crickets to an ultrasonic mouse repellent (a certain distance away) on the time of reaction of the crickets. A hypothesis was created; if the crickets are exposed to the mouse repellent which is 0m away, then the time of response of the crickets will be very fast (2-5 seconds)(compared to the other distances tested). This is because the sound would be more intense when it is closer to the crickets compared to being farther away, where some of the sound could be absorbed by furniture etc.

Procedure:

Two dozen house crickets were placed in a cardboard container (with a screen) and exposed to an ultrasonic mouse repellent (which has frequencies that range from 32-62 kHz), which was a certain distance away (*distances tested were 0m, 5m, 10m, 15m, 20m, 25m), for 25 seconds. The time of response and the response were recorded. This test was repeated five more times for each distance (*6 times for each distance in total). The times for each distance were then averaged.

Results:

The time of response averages for each distance clearly showed that the mouse repellent's distance had an effect on the time of response of the crickets. As the repellent got farther away, the time of response increased. The preliminary conclusions were that the differences between the average time responses of all the distances tested were significant and showed that the closer the mouse repellent was to the crickets, the greater and faster the effect it had on them. Although these time of response averages visually showed that the distance of the mouse repellent had an effect on the time of response of the crickets, an ANOVA test was performed to further support the preliminary conclusions and show that the results were significant statistically. A verifiable hypothesis and a null hypothesis were created; the verifiable hypothesis suggesting that the distance of the repellent had an effect on the time of response of the crickets and that the means were not the same, while the null hypothesis