Communicating across boundaries: an examination of social information use by foraging bees and of integrated assessments in ecology teaching Pubblico
McDermott, Donna (Summer 2022)
Published
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
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