Communicating across boundaries: an examination of social information use by foraging bees and of integrated assessments in ecology teaching Open Access

Abstract

In this dissertation, I present research in two disciplines. The first is behavioral ecology. In Chapter 1, I measured bees’ foraging activity in the presence of honest, misleading, or absent social cues. In this context, the social cue was the sight of another bee on a flower, a powerful influence on bees’ decisions about which flowers to forage on. I found that misleading social cues had a lingering influence on bee foraging choices, even after the cue was removed. This indicates that bees that encounter misleading social cues are more likely to learn the characteristics of a rewarding flower instead of relying on the social cue as a shortcut. In Chapter 2, I expanded that experiment by adding a component of human-driven change when I studied the impact of pesticide exposure on social cue use. I found that bees that were exposed to pesticides did not follow social cues while foraging.

The second discipline is biology education research. For Chapter 3, I used qualitative content analysis to study how instructors that teach ecology assess the connections that students make between ecology and concepts from other disciplines. I identified seven strategies that instructors use to integrate diverse disciplinary concepts in their assessments. 

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER 1: MISLEADING SOCIAL CUES HAVE A LINGERING INFLUENCE ON FORAGING CHOICES IN

BUMBLE BEES 5

Abstract 5

Introduction 6

Methods 8

Study System 8

Table 1: Number of bees used in experiment. 9

Foraging Arena 9

Social Cue Conditions 11

Training- Day 1 12

Test- Day 2 12

Figure 1: Diagram of experimental design for two days of bee foraging. 14

Data Analysis 14

Results 16

Day 1- Foraging in the Presence of Social Cues (Training) 16

Day 2- Foraging Without Social Cues (Testing) 16

Figure 2: Bees’ propensity to visit blue flowers during foraging trips over the two days. 17

Changes Between Day 1 and Day 2- Lingering Influence of Social Cues 18

Discussion 19

Social cues are an influential shortcut for foraging 19

Even with an honest social cue, bees still sample less-rewarding flowers 21

Misleading social cues and learning 21

Limitations and future studies 23

Conclusion 24

CHAPTER 2 BUMBLE BEES DO NOT USE SOCIAL CUES AFTER EXPOSURE TO A NEONICOTINOID PESTICIDE 24

Abstract 24

Introduction 25

Methods 27

Study System 27

Pesticide Exposure 28

Figure 1: Diagram of experimental design for neonicotinoid exposure and foraging trials. 29

Foraging Arena 30

Social Cues 31

Foraging Test 31

Data Analysis 32

Results 33

Table 1: Number of bees and amount of foraging. 33

Effect of Social Cues and Neonicotinoids on Preference for Rewarding Flowers 34

Figure 2: The extent to which bees chose the blue flower while foraging. 36

Discussion 36

Pesticide-exposed bees did not use social cues 37

Decreased use of social cues may explain group-level reduction in pollination efficiency 38

Conclusion 39

CHAPTER 3 INTEGRATION ACROSS DIMENSIONS OF THE 4DEE FRAMEWORK: SEVEN STRATEGIES FROM EXISTING ECOLOGY ASSESSMENTS 40

Abstract 40

Introduction 41

Integration as an Umbrella for Interdisciplinarity and its Look-Alikes 41

The 4-Dimensional Ecology Education Framework 44

Rationale for This Study 46

Methods 47

Survey Distribution 47

Content Analysis 48

Contextual Units 49

Identification of 4DEE Elements 50

Distinction of Low and High Integration Questions 52

Themes Within High Integration Questions 55

Results 55

Survey Response Characteristics 55

Figure 1: Characteristics of the courses that our study assessments came from. 57

4DEE Elements 58

Integration of Elements Across Dimensions 59

High Integration Questions 59

Table 1: Co-occurrences between dimensions in assessment questions in study documents. 60

Table 2: Three 4DEE elements from each dimension that were coded most frequently among high integration questions. 62

Themes Within High Integration Questions 63

Figure 2: Relationships between high integration themes from this study. 65

Discussion 85

Evaluating the Opportunities and Limitations of Each High Integration Theme 86

Using High Integration Themes as Building Blocks 96

Figure 3: Opportunities presented by stacking high integration themes in lessons and assessments. 99

Limitations and Future Research 100

Conclusions 101

Appendix A- Survey 102

Appendix B- Examples of No Integration and Low Integration Questions 110

No Integration 110

Low Integration 112

Appendix C- Frequency of Element Codings 117

Appendix D- 4DEE Elements Codebook 121

CONCLUSION 140

REFERENCES 143 

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Subfield / Discipline	Population Biology, Ecology & Evolution
Degree	Ph.D.
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Education, Sciences Biology, Ecology
Keyword	DBER biology education research animal behavior behavioral ecology
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Berry Brosi, University of Washington
Committee Members	Christopher Beck, Emory University Robert Hampton, Emory University Michal Arbilly, Emory University Donna Maney, Emory University

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