Fruit Fly Experiment: Conclusion.

10. Errors and Redesign.

Throughout this experiment a number of random and procedural errors were apparent; these errors could have affected the results of the experiment in a number of ways. One experimental error that occurred during the experiment was that some flies became stuck in the food source and died. The main cause of this was the fact that the fly vials were stood up (vertically) before the flies had fully recovered from the anaesthetic. This could be overcome in future experiments by ensuring that the vials are kept horizontal until all of the flies fully recover from the anaesthetic.

One possible error that may have occurred was that some of the adult flies may have accidentally been left in the vials with their offspring, which would have affected the results due to the fact that these flies could have bred with their offspring. This could be overcome in further experiments by ensuring that all adult flies were either removed from the vial or pushed into the food source inside the vial.

This image shows a 0.1 x 0.03 inch (2.5 x 0.8 mm) ...

This image shows a 0.1 x 0.03 inch (2.5 x 0.8 mm) ...

Drosophila melanogaster image illustrating sexual ...

It is also possible that some of the maggots and pupa in the vials were killed when the adult flies were anaesthetised. This would have reduced the total number of offspring from each generation ultimately lowering the accuracy of the experiment. This could be prevented in further experiments by anaesthetising and removing the flies faster to lower the amount of time the offspring were exposed to the CO2 gas or by using a less harmful anaesthetising agent.

It is possible that there were mathematical or calculation errors made during the experiment (for example when the fly totals were being tallied). Such errors could be overcome by being more thorough when counting flies and doing calculations, and by double checking calculations.

The sample size of this experiment was...