Question

write an introduction to a scientific lab report on the question: "Do bean beetles have a preference on bean choice when laying eggs?". We used, black-eyed, lentils, azuki, and urad beans.

Answer 1

Answer to the above question:

In this experiment, we used bean beetle which is also known as the southern cowpea weevil. our purpose is to determine whether the Bean beetle prefers Black-eyes peas or the lentils or azuki or the urad beans.

The bean beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus, oviposit their eggs on the cowpea bean.If more than one host is available, the beetle will choose its host depending on the variety and size of the bean as well as the texture of the seed coat.Female bean beetles make a choice of where to oviposit their eggs. Many factors must be considered when performing an experiment of bean preference because there are many variables that differentiate the beans, such as the size of the bean, bean shape, bean color, and bean texture.The bean beetles preferred to oviposit on beans they were raised on, but over the generations, if the beetles were exposed to another bean, the beetles started to lose preference to the original bean.The size of the bean plays a role in the preference of oviposition but the way in which the females determine the size of the bean is still unknown. The female beetles seem to disperse their eggs based on the mass of the beans, not the surface area. The four types of beans were used in this experiment to determine if bean beetle have a preference. The beans are- the black eyed( Vigna unguiculata) lentils( Lens culinaris), azuki( Vigna angularis) and urad( Vigna mungo) beans. From the scientific names of the beans, it is noted that out of the four lentils, three of them belong to the genus Vigna and the rest is of the genus Lens. The Vigna is comprised of a collection of beans known as the cowpea, while the Lens genus is comprised of beans known simply as common beans. Knowing that the bean beetle is also known as the cowpea seed beetle, it is hypothesized that there is a preference for the beans of the Vignagenus, the black eyed pea,azuki and urad beans, cowpea beans, for oviposition, as opposed to the bean of the Lens genus,a common bean.

Hence, the beetle will often switch hosts if a new host becomes available to them and over time the beetles will start specializing on the new host and will lose preference for the ancestral host.