Drosophila Melanogaster Lab Report

998 Words2 Pages

The purpose of this experiment is to observe the preference of Drosophila Melanogaster between Coke and apple juice.

D. Melanogaster, the common fruit fly, is a small species of fly which feeds on fruit, yeast, alcohol, sap, and various plants. (Orkin) D. Melanogaster is a popular animal to use as a model organism--an organism commonly kept in the lab, which has been studied and has a lot of available information on it. Model organisms are called "model" because results of studies and experiences performed with them can often be generalized to humans or to other animals.

Because they can be easily cultured at a low cost, D. Melanogaster is an extremely popular model organism; their simple genetic makeup of only four chromosomes lends …show more content…

This suggests that, when all over variables are controlled, D. Melanogaster prefers a substance with a greater concentration of fructose--the apple juice. Since flies are also attracted to carbon dioxide, this plus the fructose and other sugars found in Coke are a greater attractant to D. Melanogaster.

These confusing results could have been avoided if the samples of apple juice and Coke were replaced with fresh samples for each trial. By introducing the flies to fresh Coke during each trial, we could see more clearly the flies' preferences. It is important to have as few variables as possible during an experiment; this experiment failed due to not considering the diffusion of carbon dioxide.

Conclusion

During the first trial of apple juice vs Coke, D. Melanogaster preferred the Coke; the flies preferred the juice in both subsequent trials. Because they were much more strongly attracted to the Coke during the first trial, before all the carbon dioxide had been released and diffused, the results seem to support the hypothesis that D. Melanogaster will prefer Coke over apple juice because of their attraction to carbon dioxide. However, the results are inconclusive--because the same sample of Coke was used in each trial, the experiment failed to control all the variables.

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