Do Ants Have a Sweet Tooth?

Overview

Objectives/Goals My science fair project was to see if ants preferred artificial or natural sugars. The sugars that were used were saccharin (artificial), brown (natural/non-artificial), aspartame (artificial), and pure cane (natural/non-artificial) sugars. The ants were harvester ants and they were tested in a plastic bin surrounded by four piles of sugar, two artificial sugars and two natural/non-artificial sugars. Methods/Materials In my experiment I placed a plastic bin on a flat surface and placed an anthill in the center of the container. I put two packets of each sugar on a small piece of cardboard and placed the four sugars around the perimeter of the plastic bin. Results In my results sixteen out of thirty ants preferred the aspartame sweetener (artificial sugar) over the three other sugars. 53% of the ants preferred aspartame (artificial sugar).So that means more than half the ants preferred aspartame. Eleven out of thirty ants preferred saccharin which is also artificial sugar so that#s 37% of the ants .Two out of the thirty preferred pure cane sugar which is 3% out of the ants. And only two ants preferred brown sugar out of all the other sugars which is 7%. Conclusions/Discussion In conclusion the harvester ants preferred the artificial sugars which are aspartame artificial sweetener/sugar and saccharin artificial sweetener/sugar over the natural sugars which were pure cane sugar natural/non-artificial and brown sugar natural/non-artificial.

Competition history

• CSEF 2014 Zoology · Entry J2216

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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