ssignments
Below, you will see three different projects which students have participated in over the last year. The first assignment, presented in two parts, was the original project used by Professor Joan Strassmann in her Animal Behavior (Bios 321) class at Rice University. The project was a culmination of the ideas covered in class throughout the 1994 fall semester. The project emphasizes a student's ability to work in a group to develop a method of synthesizing and presenting collected data.
The second assignment, presented to eleventh and twelfth graders at the South Texas Science Academy in Mercedes, Texas, focuses on developing observation and analysis skills. Students were asked to select three questions which they wished to explore. This choice encouraged them to individually chose the research path they would follow and to focus on a particular problem, giving them a sense of responsibility for the ultimate outcome of the project.
The third set of questions were given to fifth graders participating in Take Your Daughters to Work Day at Rice University. The questions are designed to develop observation skills.
Rice University Animal Behavior (Bios321)
Paper Wasps as a Model System:
First Assignment
Three colonies of Polistes bellicosus were videotaped in the wild at Brazos Bend State Park for a number of hours. After videotaping, the colonies were collected and the females were measured and genotyped. These videotapes are available from the reserve desk in the library. I also put one set of videotapes in the biosciences computer classroom, where several VCRs are available. These data are available to you over owlnet in a Mosaic format in the form of images of the heads (an indicator of size), the ovaries (an indicator of reproductive status) and DNA microsatellites (used to partition reproduction among females and to assess genetic relatedness). This assignment is based on your analysis and interpretation of these data.
1. What do Polistes bellicosus females do? Make a complete list of all the behaviors you see performed. This list should be organized by general type of behavior and should have a brief name followed by a longer description. Give a specific place on a tape which you feel is a good example of the behavior. (5 points)
Partial example (from mockingbirds):
- Foraging behaviors
- Walk-wingflash - Mockingbird walks around on the ground periodically flashing the whites of its wings to scare up insects which it then eats.
- Perch-hunt - Mockingbird sits in tree and flies out to catch flying insects then returns to tree.
- there will be lots of others too
- Territorial behaviors
- Line-walk - Mockingbird walks along edge of territory opposite bird from neighboring territory, displaying by raising its wings and calling.
- Fight - Mockingbird flies at and crashes into intruder, pecks it on the back continuing for up to 2 minutes.
- etc.
2. How do Polistes bellicosus females partition their efforts between reproducing and caring for young? Why? Support your view with appropriate behavioral, ovarian, size or genetic data. You may cite specific locations on the tapes. You may illustrate your answer with figures, tables and graphs. (5 points)
3. How is reproduction divided up in the group of Polistes bellicosus females? Why? Support your view with appropriate behavioral, ovarian, size, or genetic data. You may illustrate your answer with figures, tables and graphs. (5 points)
4. If the dominant female is removed who would the foundresses prefer to have assume the role of dominant female? If the dominant female is removed who would the workers prefer to have assume the role of dominant female? Why? Support your view with appropriate behavioral, ovarian, size or genetic data. You may illustrate your answer with figures, tables and graphs. (5 points)
5. Who do you think will actually take over? Why? In whose interests is this? Support your view with appropriate behavioral, ovarian, size or genetic data. You may illustrate your answer with figures, tables and graphs. (5 points)
Honor code: You are strongly encouraged to work in groups on many aspects of this assignment. You may watch videos, look at data and brainstorm together. You can develop a list of behaviors together. You may generate figures, tables and graphs as a group, or share them within a group only if you have participated in the data analysis that supports each figure, table or graph. Clearly label which figures, tables or graphs you did independently, and which you got from the group. Write a few sentences describing to me how your group worked. Sign the honor code on this assignment. The final text of the report must be done independently!
Paper Wasps as a Model System:
Second Assignment
Subsequent to the recordings you have already seen of Polistes bellicosus, we removed a dominant female from each of the three colonies and again recorded behaviors. These tapes are available in the library. This assignment is based on these videotapes, the comments on your previous assignment, and on your reading for this class.
1. How does the behavior of Polistes bellicosus change after the removal of a dominant female? Are females more or less active? Is there more or less aggression? Is the dominance hierarchy more or less well defined? Is there more or less foraging for food? Do other behaviors associated with bearing or caring change? Are there great differences among the colonies, and why or why not?
2. Who becomes the new dominant female? How can you tell? In whose interests is this? Were your predictions supported? Why or why not? Take into account any comments your instructors made on the first assignment, if this is appropriate.
3. A model system in biology is a system in which important conceptual issues can be tested and the results generalized to other systems. A model system is usually particularly amenable to the study of an important general phenomenon. This might be the case because it involves an animal with short lifespans, or that is easily reared, observed or experimented on, or because it has been thoroughly studied previously. A model system should be simple and general enough that important concepts can be easily explored and understood. This project has used Polistes bellicosus as a model system for kin selection. What are its strengths and weaknesses as a model system? In answering consider similarities and differences of kin selection in wasps and other animals where kin selection has been studied, such as other social insects, dwarf mongooses, naked mole rats, Florida scrub jays, or other animals from your class reading.
Honor code: You are strongly encouraged to work in groups on many aspects of this assignment. You may watch videos, look at data and brainstorm together. You can develop a list of behaviors together. You may generate figures, tables and graphs as a group, or share them within a group only if you have participated in the data analysis that supports each figure, table or graph. Clearly label which figures, tables or graphs you did independently, and which you got from the group. Write a few sentences describing to me how your group worked. Sign the honor code on this assignment. The final text of the report must be done independently!
South Texas Science Academy
Exploring Social Wasp Behavior
I. Questions based only on videotapes of behavior
- What do wasps do?
- Do some wasps perform certain tasks more often than others?
- Does the behavior of the foundresses who are mated and have survived the winter differ from the behavior of their daughters who are young and have not mated?
- How do the wasps build and care for their nest?
- How do the wasps feed their young?
- How do the wasps protect their young?
- How do the wasps clean themselves?
- How do the wasps interact among themselves?
- How is the behavior of wasps similar or different among the three colonies?
- Do wasps on the larger colony bring in more food in all than the smaller colony, or does each wasp on the larger colony simply work less hard?
II. Questions based only on material available at the website
- Do foundresses and daughters differ in size or degree of ovarian development? Is this the same for the three colonies? How do you compare ovarian development among wasps?
- Which foundress has produced most of the daughters? Is there only one queen on all three colonies? Use both microsatellites and ovaries to answer this question.
- Is the main queen larger than the other foundresses in these three colonies? If not why do you think she is queen anyway?
- There is one wasp on one nest that could not have been the daughter of any of the females. She was probably a worker that got lost and joined the wrong colony. Which one is she?
- In wasps, sisters share three quarters of their genes on average. Are the foundresses on the same colony likely to be sisters? Are the daughters on the same colony likely to be sisters? Justify your answer.
III. Questions based on website material and videotapes
- Does the main egg layer behave differently from the other foundresses? Justify your answer.
- Does the wasp who is not related to the others on the nest behave differently from the daughters that were born there? Justify your answer.
- Do daughters with some ovarian development behave differently from daughters with no ovarian development? Does your answer vary depending on the nest? Justify your answer.
- Does the largest daughter behave differently from the smallest daughter? Does your answer vary depending on the nest? Justify your answer.
- Does the largest foundress behave differently from the smallest foundress? Does your answer vary depending on the nest? Justify your answer.
- If the main egg layer were removed who do you think would take over? Justify your answer.
Bring our Daughters to Work on Wasps
Electronic Studio Project
- What do wasps do on their nest?
- Does the largest female have the largest ovaries?
- Who is the queen?
- Does the queen act differently from the other females?
- Who is unrelated to the egg layers on the nest?
- Does the unrelated female behave differently from the other females?
- What else can you figure out about these wasps?