Superworms vs. Mealworms who can eat the most Styrofoam?

Voiceover

Presenter(s)

Avalyn Martinez

Abstract or Description

I hypothesized that Superworms would eat more Styrofoam than Mealworms. Both Superworms and Mealworms are able to consume Styrofoam. There were five Mealworms or Superworms per box. Boxes 5 and 6 were fed 6g of oats, and the rest were fed 4g of Styrofoam. Each Monday and Friday, the worms would be weighed, their food would be weighed, and only once per box, a PocketLab was placed to measure their Co2 emissions. At the end of the experiment, their average food weight per box ranged from .31g-.34g for the styrofoam boxes. For the control boxes, the Mealworms had 4.38g of oats left, while the Superworms had 4.74g left. The Mealworms had fourteen dead compared to the sixteen dead Superworms. The Mealworms had a weight range of .34g-.44g compared to the Superworms weight range of .48g-1.53g. The average weight for a Mealworm is.13g- .16g, and for a Superworm, .4g-.7g. For the Superworms, only one pupated in box ten on the 4th, but it died. The Mealworms had nine beetles at the end of the experiment. The PocketLab did not provide sound results. Some boxes had a higher Co2 emission than the control group of 1,238, while others had lower ones. There was some experimental error, which messed up some of the data. Based on the experimental error and the Mealworms pupating faster and dying less, I do not support my hypothesis.