Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello!!
I need help.
I need to come up with a project idea for my upcoming science project.
This will be a biology project. I will be doing a study on some kind of invertebrate... I just am not sure of which one yet.
Also, I want this project to have a Good Application
Some of the ideas I have come up with so far include:
-Studying the withdrawal effects of SSRI's (antidepressants) on Crayfish... but crayfish are hard to take care of and SSRI's are hard to get.
-Doing and experiment with C. Elegans and RNA interference.... but these projects are confusing and I'm not really sure what the application is and if it's important.
I really want to do something that will be interesting, and that will actually be for a certain purpose. I don't care if it's difficult, I just need something that will work.
Please help! And if you don't have a project idea, just give me some topics I should start researching!! Please!!!
Thank you

Hi!

Have you ever heard about "Biological Control"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_pest_control

Take a read in the Wikipedia article and if you find this topic interesting we can work on it.

For example:
Have you ever heard about the "Rocky Mountains Fever", "Ehrlichiosis" or "Anaplasmosis"?
They're all serious diseases spread by mites (specifically the Amblyomma genus) and to control these mites, we can introduce a predatory species in the environment.
This kind of service is a very huge market around the world.
In this kind of project, we have to find who are these predators and for that, we might figure out a series of experiments where you can work on.

Another example of Biological Control is the case of the "Citrus Greening Disease"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus_greening_disease

This plant disease is caused by a bacteria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidatus_Liberibacter) who is transmitted by a insect of the Psyllidae family.
In order to control the population of Psyllidae individuals, we can try to find a insect or a Acari (or any other invertebrate) who could be used as a potential predatory.

I think that these are two good examples of applications where we can use invertebrates (Public Health and Agriculture).

Tell me if you like the idea.


Regards.


Rafael Erler

Hello Rafael!

I had previously never heard anything about Biological Control, but that is extremely interesting, and something I would definitely want to experiment with!!!!

Do you have any ideas on how I would go about the project, or what a good hypothesis would be?

I've done quite a bit of researcher, but I'm just not sure where to go from here.

Thank you so much!!!

-Raina

Hi Raina!
I'm sorry for the delay!

When is the deadline for your project?