Graph Type C Level 2 Page 1 Name_____________________ Date______________________ Teacher Copy One Fish, Two fish, Shy Fish, Bold Fish Data provided by and written by GK-12 Fellow Melissa Kjelvik Background Information: Animals can act very differently. The way they act can decide which habitats they use. There are two kinds of habitats that young bluegill use to find food: open water and cover. The open water habitat has more food. But, the open water habitat has very few places for bluegill to hide, so it’s not as safe! The cover habitat is in shallower areas where lots of plants grow for bluegill to hide in. Scientists can look at what the fish were eating to see what habitats they were looking for food in. If a fish has a lot of zooplankton in their stomachs, they were probably using open-water habitat to look for food! Scientists at the Kellogg Biological Station wanted to know whether bluegill with different personalities were using different habitats. They brought young bluegill into an aquarium lab and observed them to see if each one was bold or shy. Bold fish were the ones that weren’t as scared of predators as the shy fish. The scientists marked the fish so they could tell the difference between the bold and shy ones and put 100 bold and 100 shy young bluegill into a pond. After the experiment, they looked at whether the fish had eaten zooplankton (found in open water habitats) or insect larvae (found in cover). Cover Open water Figure 1 Pond Environment. Open water is riskier for young bluegill to use because predators (bigger fish) can see them Figure 2 Set-up of lab trials to watch bluegill. If a bluegill eats the food near the predator it has a bold personality. DATA Look at the data below. See if you identify some potential patterns. Then, read on. The table shows: (1) the percentage of food in the fish stomachs that was zooplankton or insect larvae (Remember that zooplankton are found in open water and insect larvae are found in shallow water!) and (2) the growth of bold and shy fish studied measured two ways: as average fish length in millimeters and as average fish weight in grams. (1) Food In Fish Stomachs (2) Fish Growth Open Water (zooplankton) Shallow Water (insect larvae) Length (mm) Weight (g) Bold 32% 68% 74 6.6 Shy 9% 91% 70 5.5 Developed by NSF-funded Kellogg Biological Station GK-12 Fellows at Michigan State University Updated 2/9/2016 1:46:43 AM by LEK-C Graph Type C Level 2 Name_____________________ Date______________________ Teacher Copy Page 2 Evidence: You will draw graphs using the data provided and use these graphs to answer the scientific questions by making a claim. The data is the evidence that you will base your claim on, just like a lawyer would in a court case (1) Use the data collected by MSU scientists to draw a bar graph of the relationship between behavior (bold and shy) and habitat use (% open water and shallow water) (Draw your graph below). Students can make a bar graph with the percentage of diet found in open vs shallow water: Percent Habitat Use of Bold and Shy Fish Habitat Use (%) 100% 80% 60% Open Water 40% Cover 20% 0% Bold Shy Fish Behavior (2) Next, draw two bar graphs that show the growth of fish related to their behavior: one showing the relationship between behavior (bold or shy) and average length and another showing the relationship between behavior and average weight (Draw your graphs below). Average Weight of Bold and Shy Fish Average Length of Bold and Shy Fish Title: Bold Shy Fish Behavior Title: 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Bold Fish Behavior Average Weight (g) Average Fish Length (mm) 76 74 72 70 68 66 64 62 60 Average Weight (g) Average Length (mm) ? Scientific Questions: (1) Does the habitat use by bold and shy fish differ? (2) If there is a difference, how do differences habitat use affect fish growth? (Do you think one habitat has better food than the other?) Shy Bold Shy Fish Behavior Bold Shy Fish Behavior Evidence summary: Bold fish had more food in their stomachs from the open water habitat than shy fish. Bold fish were both longer and weighed more then shy fish. Developed by NSF-funded Kellogg Biological Station GK-12 Fellows at Michigan State University Updated 2/9/2016 1:46:43 AM by LEK-C Graph Type C Level 2 Page 3 Name_____________________ Date______________________ Teacher Copy Claim: Write a claim that answers the scientific questions. Bold and shy fish use different habitats to find food and bold fish grow faster, maybe because the open water habitat has higher quality food. Reasoning: How does the evidence support your claim? (Be specific!) Shy fish mostly used shallow water habitat to find food. Bold fish also mostly used shallow water for their habitat, but they used more open water habitat than the shy fish. (Bold fish used open water habitat 32% of the time, but shy fish only used open water habitat 9% of the time) Because bold fish used open water habitat much more than the shy fish, they are using different habitats to find food. Bold fish were also bigger in length (by 4 mm) and weight (by 1.1 g) than shy fish, so students can hypothesize that food from open water habitats are higher quality, allowing the bold fish to grow more than the shy fish. Developed by NSF-funded Kellogg Biological Station GK-12 Fellows at Michigan State University Updated 2/9/2016 1:46:43 AM by LEK-C