a) What is the primary research question for this study? b) What is the primary working hypothesis for this study? c) Is this an experiment or an observational study? Justify your answer.
Some plants in wetter climates release certain chemicals in response to leaf consumption by insects. These chemicals may either repel the leaf-eaters and/or attract other insects that will consume the leaf-eaters. A researcher was interested in whether desert plants emitted the same types of compounds. Desert plants have different kinds of leaves compared to plants from less arid areas. The researcher harvested Coville’s lip fern (Cheilanthes covillei) from deserts in Utah to bring into a greenhouse. The plants were 12 – 15 cm (5 – 6 in) tall. Each plant was placed in a separate pot, and there were 40 pots in all. Each pot was assigned to one of four “leaf eater” treatments: a control (i.e., no insects); 5 hornworms; 5 leaf bugs; or 5 flea beetles. Then the researcher measured the emission rate of a particular repelling compound from each plant once every hour for a total of 8 hours (8:00 am – 4:00 pm). Based on this scenario, please answer the following questions:
- a) What is the primary research question for this study?
- b) What is the primary working hypothesis for this study?
- c) Is this an experiment or an observational study? Justify your answer.
- d) Describe 3 confounding or third variables that have been accounted for in this study design.
- e) What is the unit of replication? Explain.
Defense mechanism of plant
In order to protect against eating leaf from an insect plant has various mechanism such as waxy coating on the surface of leaf, secretion of chemicals that have antimicrobial activity, secret chemicals which attract other animals that eat the insect, etc.
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