Biological Pest Control

Biological Pest Control

Abstract

Biological pest control is the control of a certain agricultural or another type of pest through the use of its natural predator. This is a very effective way to control pests without using harmful pesticides. Without theuse of pesticides then there will be fewer toxins let out into the environment, which will be better for everyone.

Introduction

In this lab, the pest is the Aphids and the biological control is the spiders. The goal of this experiment is to come up with an effective spider that will control the Aphid population under no more than 150 Aphids, and to keep the population under that number for over 365 days..

Methods

The eyesight and speed of the spider was increased and the reproduction for spiders was also increased. Its effects of the Aphids were recorded. Next, the number of spiders that were put in was decreased and the speed, eyesight, and reproduction levels were changed accordingly. The first change that was made proved to be effective enough to keep the Aphid population down for a long period of time.

Results

The results for the first set of parameters:

Parameters: How far spiders see How fast spiders move How many insects a spider eats before reproducing

8 4 6

This shows that the parameters that we set were effective enough to keep the Aphid population under control.

Parameters for second set:

Parameters: Vision Speed Food/Reproduction # of spiders dropped in per day

8 3 1 0.5

Again, the population of the Aphids were able to be held under control with the changes in the spider. The population was successfully able to keep the total number under 100 Aphids for over a year.