User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
Designation: City Park, Community Garden
Time: 1647 hours
Date: 08-09-2020
Weather: Sunny, clear sky, hot and dry, minimal breeze 25 degrees celsius, hazy (Forest Fires in Effect In Washington DC)
Seasonality: Summer, approaching fall
Study Area: Community Garden at 1645 East 8th Avenue Vancouver BC. Latitude: 49.2635 Longitude: -123.0711. Study area is generally small, approximately 2 houses worth of lans (~1500 sq. feet)
The organism I plan to study is the Western Honeybee (Apis mellifera)
As briefly outlined in my field journal, I have chosen 3 locations along my environmental gradient (between the bee hive and street located about 25 paces South from the hive. For the sake of ease I have labelled the areas by the plant that I am observing the honeybees on there:
Location 1: Elderberry Flower Shrub (7 paces East of hive)
-Character: Bees seem to be busier, more movement observed in the bees between each small flower on the plant.
-Distribution: Bees are pollinating moderately closely together, seem to pollinate the flower bunches that are in direct sunlight. Not every flower bunch contains bees, out of 1 shrub approximately 3-6 flower bunches contained pollinating bees.
-Abundance: 5-7 bees pollinating on one flower bunch at any given time
Location 2: Small white flowers (11 paces South of Bee hive, towards street)
-Character: Bees are still pollinating here, don’t seem to move as quickly (perhaps this is just because I do not see as many bees in this location, giving the illusion that they are moving slower)
-Distribution: Bees are pollinating further apart than location 1, can count 3-4 flowers in between flowers that contain a bee pollinating it. the entire plant is in direct sunlight, no shaded areas to observe the difference of bee activity.
-Abundance: 3-7 bees on entire plant at any given moment
Location 3: Orange Flowers (21 paces south of bee hive, closest location to the street out of locations observed)
-Character: Bees still pollinating here, seem to be more “picky”, going from flower to flower until they choose one to pollinate. Seem to be moving as quick as they do in location 2
-Distribution: Bees pollinating far away from each other. The whole plant contains approximately 10-15 flowers and only 1-3 bees will be on the entire plant
-Abundance: 1-3 bees on entire plant at any given moment
3. After thinking about possible underlying processes that may cause the patterns observed I have come up with a hypothesis and prediction:
Hypothesis: Roads influence Honeybee pollination patterns
Prediction: I predict that Western Honeybees pollinate plants that are located furthest away from the street.
4. Based on my hypothesis and prediction, I have written one potential response variable and one potential explanatory variable:
-Response variable: Western Honeybee Activity. This would be a continuous variable as I can use numerical units to count the numbers of honeybees over a period of time that visit the site.
-Predictor/Explanatory variable: Distance from the street (East 8th Avenue, Vancouver BC). This would be a categorical variable.
Because my predictor variable is categorical and my response variable is continuous, this would be indicative of an ANOVA design. I hope to use a one-way layout design to compare the pollination activity of my 3 treatments.
Sounds like your thinking is coming along! Are you still thinking of accounting for different types of plants (native vs. cultivated) and will the distribution of plants along your gradient influence your results at all in addition to distance from the road?
Thank you! I’m not entirely sure if I want to use a combination of native and cultivated plants in addition to distance to the road as I think this may make it difficult to determine if the honeybee pollination activity is being affected by the road or the plant. Instead I think I may use 3 cultivated plants that are somewhat similar given the area that I am observing (e.g. all plants that have flowers and have good access to sunlight). This way I can observe the pollination activity in relation to distance from the road and not have to account for another variable that may skew my results. What do you think? It’s difficult because there are not 3 of the same plant that are in the locations that I need to study, so the closest I could get would be 3 similar cultivated plants.
Hi, Sorry I didn’t see your reply right away. I think that could work and you can still consider in your discussion if the 3 plants you chose could have any differences in pollination and thus affect your interpretation of distance from the road.