Biology Experiment Design

Title:
Effects of Moisture and Temperature on the Movement of Snails.

Problem Statement:
Does the moisture (humidity) and the temperature of the surrounding
environment have any effect on the movement of snails?

Introduction:
This project was carried out to examine the movement of snails under different moisture
and temperature condition. Snails are cold-blooded organisms, poikilotherms. Another
similar example are reptiles. Cold-blooded organisms basically would move slowly when the
surrounding environment is cold as they require heat energy from their surroundings to
increase the temperature of their internals as well as metabolism. With a warm internal
temperature they are able to metabolise foods more quickly to produce the energy required
to sustain their activities. Snail slime contains 90% water, some mineral salts and as much as
10% mucus. Snail mucus when mixed with water is what we know call slime, a biopolymer
gel with some amazing properties that helps them to move around by reducing friction.
Mucus production alone accounts for about one third (1/3) of the total energy output of
these creatures, making crawling for them to be the most energetically expensive type of
locomotion known among vertebrates as well as invertebrates. This also shows that both
the temperature and the moisture factor are both quite closely related and have major
effects on the snails movement.

Objective:
To determine how would the temperature and the moisture (humidity) of the surrounding
environment affects the movement of snails.

Variables:-
Manipulated variables: Temperature and air moisture (humidity)
Constant variables: Type/Size of snails.
Responding variables: Distance covered by marked snails.

Hypothesis:
The higher the temperature and humidity, the further the average distance travelled by the
snails.

Apparatus and materials:
Snails, digital calliper / ruler, different colour if paint, thermometer, sling psychrometer,
buckets(3), popsicle sticks (coloured-coded ,flashlight.

Procedure:
1. During daytime, a few snails of about the same size were captured and marked with
different colours of paint on their shell and placed in three different buckets that
corresponds to the marking colours on the shell.

2. Three hours after sundown, the snails are then released at the centre of the backyard
garden and their exact initial positions of the released are marked using coloured-coded
Popsicle sticks. The temperature and the humidity were also recorded.

3. The distance travelled by the snails on the following day is then recorded based on the
distance as marked by the Popsicle sticks.

4. The marking and measuring were repeated for the following 18 nights at about the same
time until the data points for most temperature or humidity combinations are obtained.

Average length travelled by the snails based on a temperature and humidity factor.

Humidity
Temperature
Dry Damp/Rainy
Below 5C 0.7 inches 1.9 inches
Between 5C to 10C 7.4 inches 33.2 inches
Above 10C 20.5 inches 29.5 inches

Expected outcome:
Our results shows that the snails move further on warm and damp nights. On cold nights at
about below 5C, the snails showed an average distance travelled of about 0.7 inches when
it was dry. On the medium temperature nights at about 5C to 10C, the snails only moved
on an average of about 7.4 inches when it was dry but moved at a greater distance when it
was damp or rainy i.e. About 33.2 inches. On the other hand, on warm nights i.e. more than
10C, the snails travelled an average of 20.5 inches when it was dry and as much as 29.5
inches when it was damp or rainy.

Conclusion:
The hypothesis is accepted. The observations show that snail move further on warm which
proves to be consistent with the fact that the snails, metabolism would be higher. And on
days when humidity is relatively high, snails move further as well, as the moisture in the air
would consequently help in the snails movement by reducing the amount of slime they are
required to produce in order to move forward.