Behavioral Effects of Varying Female to Male Ratio in Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches

Abstract

Our lab group decided to carry out this experiment because we read that the Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches will hiss as a mating call, therefore we wanted to see whether the ratio of females to males would alter the frequency of hissing.  By measuring how many hisses were heard during each trial of the different ratios we have found that the hissing is most prevalent when the ratio of females is greater than males.  Leading us to the conclusion that the male dominance in a group of cockroaches will be heavily expressed.  To test our hypothesis, we used different amounts of females compared to the amount of males in order to observe variations in behavior.