Mealworm Population Lab Report

According to the data, the population size obtained for Group RG/CL is an outlier in respect to other groups’ population sizes. After two weeks of sampling and counting the population of mealworms, a population of 506 mealworms was calculated. A very broad confidence interval was also calculated, ranging from 143.58 to 868.42 (Table 1). Although other groups seem to have large confidence intervals, they are within a 200-300 limit. The confidence interval calculated for Group RG/CL has about a 700 difference. Thus, their values obtained certainly reveal that experimental errors are involved. However, the true population size do seem to correlate to the obtained population size for each group. While a population size of 506 mealworms is an outlier
In the following week, a second sample (one scoop) was taken and recounted again. Both samples were attempted to be obtained with equal and random sampling effort, such that each mealworm in the population have an equal opportunity for selection. The population was defined using the Bailey correction for the Lincoln-Peterson formula, which calculated the population size in the sample by using the total numbers of mealworms in each of the two samples and the number of marked mealworms recaptured in the second sample. Since this formula only gives an estimate of the mealworms obtained from the samples and the number of recaptured marked individuals, it does not include all individuals of the beetles; this method does not give a true indication of the population size, hence the calculation for the 95th confidence interval to determine the accuracy of the estimated population value. In addition, only mealworms, or beetle larvae, were counted; they were considered the individuals in the population, and any adult beetles or pupae were