having trouble with developing a hypothesis for an experiment i have to design?

Question

Female silkworm moths attract males by emitting chemical signals that spread through the air. A male hundreds of meters away can detect these molecules and fly toward their source. The sensory organs responsible for this behavior are the comblike antennae on their heads. Each filament of an antenna is equipped with thousands of receptor cells that detect the sex attractant. Propose a hypothesis to account for the ability of the male moth to detect a specific molecule in the presence of many other molecules in the air.

thank you .. but i already know what a hypothesis is...it's just that all the ones i come up with don't make sense..

Answer 1

Hmm..OK, well one hypothesis would be that there are specific receptors for the pheromone on the antennae, and these receptors will recognize the pheromone but not other chemicals.

I know you didn't ask for a design, but if you wanted to test this, you could label the pheromone with a fluorescent red tag, and other chemicals with fluorescent green tags, and show that where a red color was seen, a green color was never seen. You'd first treat the antennae with the labeled pheromone, then take a picture under UV light of the antennae. Then wash out the pheromone and come in with a green-labeled chemical and show that the two colors never co-localize.

Answer 2

If male silkworm moths are able to detect the chemical signals emitted by a female, then the sensory organs (antennae) used to detect these signals are sensitive and specialized enough to distinguish these signals from other molecules in the air.

Answer 3

The moth's brain is programed to recognize and cause the moth to responded too, the females pheromones. The moth will follow the trail of the pheromones, that are coming from the female. The antenna are like the moths nose. Turned inside out; for greater receptiveness.

Answer 4

Thumbs up if you are a Sophomore in high school mandated to take an Honors Biology course but instead was put in an Advanced Placement Biology course in which the teacher fails not only to educate the students, but also to provide them with the necessary resources to obtain such knowledge.

Answer 5

One would have to assume that the receptors only accepted that particular pheromone.
The more interesting question is, "How does it then know how to track down the lady moth?"

Answer 6

A hypothesis is just a potential answer to a question. You have the question, now think of as many different possible answers that might work as you can. These are your hypotheses. The next step is to think how you might be able to test them to see which one(s) don't work.