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Introduction & Relevance of Research Literature:
The goal of student generated lab is to study the effect of music on orientation of spiders within a controlled environment. Past experiments prove that web patterns of house spiders are altered due to imposed changes in the spider’s environments and behaviors; we believe that this research readily applies to the orientation of a spider within the environment as well. Our original experiment involved directly studying the web; upon investigation this proved inefficient as the webs of house spiders are extremely tiny and the technology to properly evaluate one statistically is not available to us. Also this design was ineffective as it did not yield much statistical data. Thus the revised experiment explores the way that spiders inhabit a given space as a result of musical stimulus.
Spiders are sensitive to vibration. They have a relatively heavy center and are connected to their surface by only eight slim appendages, and use their sensitivity to vibration to compensate for their poor eye site (Shear, 61). Clearly this sensitivity is important as spiders use it when they realize that prey has hit their web (www.thesnake.org/spiders.html). Also vibrations play a key role in the mating process of spiders; for example wolf spiders use their appendages to vibrate their web and excite their counterpart (Rovner, 72-73). For these reasons we feel certain that there will be at least some measurable pattern in the way the spiders react to the music. We predict that the each group of spiders will react in a comparable way to the musical stimulus (and thus there will patterns to statistically analyze). Specifically, we think spiders will be drawn to the softer vibration – perhaps they’ll have a desire to mate- and repelled from the erratic and harsher vibrations which seem more threatening.
We think this experiment is significant because it will shed light on the way spiders react to human intervention. As our cities grow, we infringe and dominate more and more of the natural environment. Spiders today are exposed to car horns, construction, slamming doors and telephones. These experiments perhaps will show us how spider behavior has changed as human “noise” has entered the spider realm. By exaggerating and controlling this noise we can observe some general trends.
Materials and Methods
I Materials:
1. 28 spiders; the subjects of our study
2. 28 cylindrical containers (like a film box but clear); the spider’s habitat for duration of the study
3. 3 CD players and speakers; these will play the music
4. 3 CDs (one classical, one techno and one rap); this is the music to which the spiders will be exposed.
5. 4 sheets of foam to place the spider containers on; this will allow the spiders to be more sensitive to the vibrations
6. 1 black light; this will allow us to count the number of strands connecting the web to the cylinder
7. Several small crickets to feed the spiders on the weekends
II Methods:
Twenty eight spiders of the same specie will be collected and split into four groups of seven. Each group set up in a different classroom in the basement of Mary Lyon Hall. The spiders will each be inside a small one inch in diameter-three inch tall clear empty cylindrical container. The containers will have a grid on them so that we can take data on the angle as well as the approximate height of the spiders’ location (see attachment A for further details). The containers will be located on a flat foam surface, equidistant from the source of sound (approximately 2 feet away). See attachment A for further details on setup. Three groups, excluding the control, will be exposed to music for 24 hours a day and the spider placement will be measured twice a day; once in the morning, and then again in the evening. The control will also be monitored, although it will not be exposed to any music. The control is critical; through the control we will observe whether or not spiders orient themselves in the same way naturally (we suspect that they don’t). Group one will have the pleasure of listening to the classical piece: “Ave Maria” by Bach. We chose this song because the rhythms have a measured pattern and there is repetition of rhythm and melody. It is also soft and has very few variations in meter and beat. Group two will be exposed to “Tanto Tempo” a remix techno song by Peter Kruder. This obviously juxtaposes the level of vibrations in the Bach Concerto. It is full of variable beats which provides constant vibrations. There is no pattern to the sounds that are emitted, only a relentless high pitched pounding. The final group exposed to sound will be group three. This group will be exposed to “Bombs Over Baghdad”. We chose this piece for its crashing beat and constant bombardment of vocals. The spiders will be exposed to repetitions of these pieces 24 hours/day, except on weekends. On weekends we will feed the spiders a cricket a piece and not monitor their behavior. We think that this experiment is statistically sound because we have a controlled environment for all the spiders; we plan to keep them in the basement of Mary Lyon Hall where variables such as temperature, pressure, lighting and outside noise will be the same. We believe that the data we are collecting concerning the spider orientation will yield some kind of discernable pattern, and because of the controlled structure of our experiment this pattern can be trusted and proven.
This is especially exciting because we are, in effect, bridging the wide gap between man and arachnid. We share the planet, let’s share some beautiful music!
Bibliography
1. Barghusen, Laura. The Effects of Temperature on the Web-Building Behavior of the
Common House Spider. Oxford: Miami University Press, 1994.
2. Foelix, Rainer F. Biology of Spiders. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.
3. Rovner, Jerone S, and Peter N. Witt. Spider Communication: Mechanisms and
Ecological Significance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.
4. Shear, William A. Spiders: Webs, Behavior, and Evolution. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1986.
For Further Info on this Topic, Check out this WWW Site: www.thesnake.org/spiders.html .
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