Commensalism Experiment

The objective of this experiment is to investigate if Seagulls wait around the bears while they`re finishing to eat their left over. Commensalism is a relationship between two species who live in close association and one receives a benefit (+), whereas the other is unaffected (0). My hypothesis is that the Grizzly bears and the seagulls have a commensalism relationship, where the seagulls receive benefit and the bears are unaffected. I will randomly gather photos from different time frame to look at both the number of seagulls and bears.

Methods:

To test my hypothesis, I will use an online random number generator to gather photos from different time frame distributed evenly between each hour (5 per hour and 90 photos total). 30 photos between 7am-1pm, 30 photos from 1pm-6pm, and 30 photos from 6pm-12am. The reason I will look at different timing is to see if the hypothesis is true at all time or just in some of the time frame. For each photo, I will count all the Seagulls and Bears found in order to see the relationship between the birds and the Grizzly bears. I will also try to see if they`re both are found at the same time and place. Results & Discussion:

From the pictures selected, despite the time and location the number of seagulls increased as the number of bears increased. The graph showing the “seagulls presence in relation to bears” was positive, as one variable increases, the other does as well. A logical explanation is that when there are more bears fishing there will be more left over for the seagulls to eat, which will increase the number of seagulls at that location as well. That also shows that seagulls are not afraid around the bears and even though they benefit from the Grizzly bears (+), the bears have a natural effect (0) and it doesn’t harm them in any