11 replies to this topic

[drtrmiller]

Disclaimer: The following is an anecdotal account from multiple observations.  I did not set up the experiment with the intention of testing a hypothesis, but am simply reporting what I have seen after noticing the issue described.

 

 

Over the past 2 months, I have been offering unlimited amounts of Sunburst Ant Nectar to a wild colony of Linepithema humile that enjoys entering my house through small cracks.  Based on the amount they are drinking each day, with no discernable reduction in feeding activity over these past months, I estimate there may be a couple hundred thousand ants inhabiting the property.

 

Over the past 10 days or so, I filled up 5 byFormica Mega liquid feeders with 40 mL of Sunburst Ant Nectar each (200 mL total), and placed the feeders in a single row for the ants to drink.  The liquid content and the feeder design is the same for each, so the only variable is the position of the feeder.  Each feeder is almost touching the other--there is not much distance between them in the row.

 

After 10 days, I measured the net amount of liquid remaining in each feeder, by weight.  Here are the results, from left to right in the row of 5 feeders:

 

 

The ants are tending the feeders different amounts, despite the contents of each being identical.  In total, I would estimate the ants are consuming 10-15 mL of fluid per day.  The feeding activity appears to vary based on the temperature and environmental conditions outside.

 

I conclude that the position/placement of the feeder is distorting the rate of feeding.  Therefore, in future food studies, it may be necessary to frequently randomize the placement of feeders or foods when conducting comparison studies of the attractiveness of closely related foods in order to eliminate the possibility of position bias.

Edited by drtrmiller, April 24 2020 - 9:29 PM.

[Vendayn]

Are you sure its a couple hundred thousand? While they do have supercolonies, I doubt it. And science is all about accuracy. If you just grossly estimate the number of argentine ants, how does anything else in the post matter? It could all be wrong. You can't just guess. You have to count each ant and mark them, and then from there you can speed it up by doing advanced algorithms because its actually impossible to count an ant colony one by one unless its a tiny colony.

 

I just don't believe anything in this post if you just assumed a number. Seems like if you assumed one thing, must have assumed a bunch of other stuff. Who knows what's true or not. Someone kindly pointed out in my thread one can never give an estimation. And likely its because no one believes you after that possibly wrong estimation.

Edited by Vendayn, April 24 2020 - 9:35 PM.

[drtrmiller]

Are you sure its a couple hundred thousand? While they do have supercolonies, I doubt it. And science is all about accuracy. If you just grossly estimate the number of argentine ants, how does anything else in the post matter? It could all be wrong. You can't just guess. You have to count each ant and mark them, and then from there you can speed it up by doing advanced algorithms because its actually impossible to count an ant colony one by one unless its a tiny colony.

 

I just don't believe anything in this post if you just assumed a number. Seems like if you assumed one thing, must have assumed a bunch of other stuff. Who knows what's true or not. Someone kindly pointed out in my thread one can never give an estimation. And likely its because no one believes you after that possibly wrong estimation.

 

The number of ants is completely irrelevant to the observation.  The reporting has nothing to do with the number of ants in the colony or the total volume of fluid the ants have consumed.

 

The percentage of each feeder consumed/remaining is the only thing that matters.  The only important variable is the position of the feeders.  So there were one hundred or one billion ants in the colony, that has nothing to do with the varying rate of decrease of each feeder in the series.

 

I also disclaimed the entire post as a personal anecdote, not a scientific study.  That doesn't mean the percent loss in each feeder is a false number.  I measured all this before tabulating the results:

 

Edited by drtrmiller, April 24 2020 - 9:49 PM.

[Vendayn]

 

Are you sure its a couple hundred thousand? While they do have supercolonies, I doubt it. And science is all about accuracy. If you just grossly estimate the number of argentine ants, how does anything else in the post matter? It could all be wrong. You can't just guess. You have to count each ant and mark them, and then from there you can speed it up by doing advanced algorithms because its actually impossible to count an ant colony one by one unless its a tiny colony.

 

I just don't believe anything in this post if you just assumed a number. Seems like if you assumed one thing, must have assumed a bunch of other stuff. Who knows what's true or not. Someone kindly pointed out in my thread one can never give an estimation. And likely its because no one believes you after that possibly wrong estimation.

 

The number of ants is completely irrelevant to the observation.  The reporting has nothing to do with the amount the ants have consumed as a matter of total volume.

 

The percentage of each feeder consumed is the only thing that matters.  So whether it was one hundred or one billion ants in the colony, that has nothing to do with the varying rate of decrease of each feeder in the series.

 

I also disclaimed the entire post as a personal anecdote, not a scientific study.  That doesn't mean the percent loss in each feeder is a false number.  I measured all this before tabulating the results.

 

Even so, one assumption can change the entire thread. The person who gave me a lecture in my thread, told me accuracy is everything in science. I didn't even focus on the numbers or care about them, and it changed the entire thread. I learned that one can't just estimate. How can anything else be believed if at the very start is one big guess of a number? If the topic is supposed to be scientific, and one of the first things is just a wild guess, how is anyone else supposed to take the rest of the topic as scientific after that?

[drtrmiller]

If you just grossly estimate the number of argentine ants, how does anything else in the post matter? It could all be wrong.

 
It would be better to ask questions if you had a concern about how one aspect affects the results, as opposed to declaring everything I observed invalid just because I provided an estimate for background, which had no effect on the actual hard data reported or the conclusion I drew.
 
Since you seem adamant about this, please elaborate how you believe colony size would affect the data I reported: the percentage of liquid in each feeder remaining at the end of the reporting period? How would colony size affect the conclusion I drew: that the position of a feeder may bias test results in future studies?  Did you even read the rest of the post or did you just decide that a single estimate I made was worth starting an argument?

 

When the number of ants in the colony is obviously a very large and virtually unknowable number, what difference does it make to the measurements in the chart or the conclusion I drew whether there were 1,000 or 100,000 ants in the colony?

Edited by drtrmiller, April 24 2020 - 10:08 PM.

[Vendayn]

Because as I said, in science accuracy is everything. No matter how insignificant that estimation and number is to you, that it actually matters a lot.

 

You don't even need to take my word for it. I thought the number I estimated was pretty insignificant and mostly signified how big the colony was. GCsnelling corrected me on that, and nothing else mattered in that thread but that number that I didn't really care too much about. I learned that as I said, in science the accuracy of that number is very important. If you just guess, nothing else matters in the topic.

[Vendayn]

Well, now the numbers are even more important.

 

The amount ants drink would coincide with how big the colony is. 100 thousand ant sized colony would drink a lot less than 500 thousand ants, and if it was 1 million ants then that is even more being consumed. 

[drtrmiller]

Well, now the numbers are even more important.

 

The amount ants drink would coincide with how big the colony is. 100 thousand ant sized colony would drink a lot less than 500 thousand ants, and if it was 1 million ants then that is even more being consumed. 

 

You are correct.  More ants drink more fluid in total.  But this is completely irrelevant to my post.

 

For science sake--

 

Controlled variables:

Type of fluid

Design of liquid feeder

Species of ants

Number of ants

Time period

 

Independent variable:

Position of liquid feeder

 

Dependent variable:

Amount of fluid consumed from each liquid feeder relative to the other feeders

 

As you can see, I am not comparing colonies or species, so the number of ants is a control, and not an independent variable.  Therefore, the number of ants has no effect on the dependent variable, "amount of fluid consumed" when expressed as a percentage.

Edited by drtrmiller, April 24 2020 - 10:38 PM.

[Vendayn]

Then there was no point in saying how many ants you estimated at, since its not a fact that mattered at all. Could have said a lot of ants or something like I could have done, if didn't care about the actual number of ants.

[drtrmiller]

Then there was no point in saying how many ants you estimated at, since its not a fact that mattered at all. Could have said a lot of ants or something like I could have done, if didn't care about the actual number of ants.

 

Then you could have ignored it rather than arguing about it.

"Science," and especially anecdotes such as the one I have described, are filled with less useful background facts based on speculation and estimation where neither accuracy nor precision are required.

[FSTP]

This is a byFormica Sunburst ant nectar related thread. 

[Vendayn]

This is a byFormica Sunburst ant nectar related thread. 

what's the point of this asinine comment? I guess as much as this one. I had a thread get derailed with useless garbage about numbers that didn't even matter or that I cared about. Now I'm sharing the same treatment I got. Strangely, GCsnelling has a hard on for me because he never has once gone to someone elses thread and complained about their estimations that can't even be proven or disproven without actually going to the location there anyway.

Edited by Vendayn, April 24 2020 - 11:15 PM.