This Research Agenda Page includes three parts: Literature Review, Problem Section, and Solution Section. Each section contains three main academic sources used in my essays. My research topic is Bees and Social Behavior. More details about the sources are listed as follows.
Literature Review
​
Sources for Literature Review of "Biogenic Amine Modulation of Honey Bee Sociability and Nestmate Affiliation"
​
Hewlett, Susie E., et al. “Biogenic Amine Modulation of Honey Bee Sociability and Nestmate
Affiliation.” PLoS ONE, vol. 13,no. 10, Oct. 2018, pp. 1–18. EBSCOhost,doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0205686.
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=132587973&site=ehost-live&scope=site
​
Susie Hewlett is a biology scientist at Macquarie University who is an expert of bees. She and her co- scientists’ scientific pubulished an article called “Biogenic Amine Modulation of Honey Bee Sociability and Nestmate Affiliation” in PLOS ONE journal. This article is about a study of the impact of biogenic amine modulation on honey bees’behaviors, and it concludes that dopamine has a great effect on bee sociability and group cohesion. They also tested the influences of octopamine on bees and find it relates to insect social interactions. The researchers used methods such as statistical graphs, controlled experiments to study about the effects of biogenic amine on bees. This article analyzed some factors that relates to bee’s social behaviors, thus, it can work as a supporting article to explain the reasons of bee’s social behaviors.
​
Sources for Literature Review of "Neighbourhood Society: Nesting Dynamics, Usurpations and Social Behaviour in Solitary Bees"
​
ÄŒerná, KateÅ™ina, et al. “Neighbourhood Society: Nesting Dynamics, Usurpations and Social
Behaviour in Solitary Bees.” PLoS ONE,vol. 8, no. 9, Sept. 2013, pp. 1–9. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0073806.
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=90531293&site=ehost-live&scope=site
​
Cerna Katerina, Jakub Straka are scientists of the department of zoology at Charles University in Prague. Their scientific article about bees’ social behavior “Neighbourhood Society: Nesting Dynamics, Usurpations and Social Behaviour in Solitary Bees” has published on PLos ONE in 2013.
This article is about nesting behavior of female solitary bees, and their “exchanging nest” behavior in the neighborhood. This study analyzed four bee familes, Andrenidae, Apidae, Colletidae, and Megachilidae. It used statistical method, such as ANOVA analysis to determine the difference of the nesting behaviors between these groups. It concluded that the nesting behavior are almost the same among these four groups. I will place this article as the first article because this is an observational study that just summarizes bee’s social behaviors without much explanation about it.
​
​
Sources for Literature Review of "Exploring the Role of Juvenile Hormone and Vitellogenin in Reproduction and Social Behavior in Bumble Bees"
​
Amsalem, Etya, et al. “Exploring the Role of Juvenile Hormone and Vitellogenin in Reproduction
and Social Behavior in Bumble Bees.” BMC Evolutionary Biology, vol. 14, no. 1, May 2014, pp. 1–13. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/1471-2148-14-45.
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=96046856&site=ehost-live&scope=site
​
Chritina Grozinger, Etya Amsalem and other scientists of the article “Exploring the Role of Juvenile Hormone and Vitellogenin in Reproduction and Social Behavior in Bumble Bees” are scientist at Penn State University. Their specializations are bees, social insects and etc.
In this scientific article, they studied the impact of juvenile hormone and vitellogenin on bumblebee’s reproduction. They used methods such as controlled group study, and they conducted several experiments to analyze the influences of vg RNA expression and aggression on bumblebees’ reproduction behavior. It shows that juvenile hormone is related to bunble bee's reproduction. This article shows factors that could influence bees’ behavior, thus, I will treat it parallel to the “biogenic amine” article.
​
​
​
What's the Problem: three sources
​
Devillers, J., et al. “Comparative Toxicity and Hazards of Pesticides ToApisand Non-Apisbees. A Chemometrical
Study.” SAR and QSAR in Environmental Research, vol. 14, no. 5-6, 7 Aug. 2003, pp. 389–403., doi:10.1080/10629360310001623980.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10629360310001623980?scroll=top&needAccess=true
James Devillers and other scientists of the article “Comparative Toxicity and Hazards of Pesticides ToApisand Non-Apisbees. A Chemometrical Study” are all French experts of honey bees. James Devillers is the author of the book “Genetic Algorithms in Molecular Modeling”, and he has around 190 scientific publications.
“Comparative Toxicity and Hazards of Pesticides ToApisand Non-Apisbees. A Chemometrical Study” is a scientific study that tested the impact of 158 pesticides on Honey bee, alkali bee, and leafcutting bee. The study provides a table about the relative hazard of the 158 kinds of pesticides tested. The result is that almost all pesticides have a bad effect on bees, however, different bee species may differ in the degree of tolerance of toxicants. This source is good because it tested many kinds of pesticides, and made conclusions based on all the tests. I think this study gives a credible result on the effect of pesticides since it used large sample data. It is effective at showing the impact of many pesticides on bees.
​
​
​
Gill, Richard J., et al. “Combined Pesticide Exposure Severely Affects Individual- and Colony-Level Traits in
Bees.” Nature, vol. 491, no. 7422, 2012, pp. 105–108., doi:10.1038/nature11585.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11585
​
​ Richard J. Gill, Oscar Ramos-Rodriguez, and Nigel E. Raine are all scientists that expertise in animal behavior and bees. Richard J. Gill had been in the Department of Biological Science at the University of London for two years, and his research topic is the effects of pesticides on individual and colony level traits in bumblebees.
“Combined Pesticide Exposure Severely Affects Individual- and Colony-Level Traits in Bees” focus on the effects of pesticides on bumble bees. It concludes that pesticides can influence the behavior of bumble bees. I chose this source because this is a source about bumble bee, but not about honey bee. I want to use this source because not only honey bees, but about bumble bees. It indicates that other bees species, not only honey bees, need protection as well, because they also help with pollination.
​
​
​
Goulson, D., et al. “Bee Declines Driven by Combined Stress from Parasites, Pesticides, and
Lack of Flowers.” Science, vol. 347, no. 6229, 2015, pp. 1255957–1255957., doi:10.1126/science.1255957.
Dave Goulson and the scientists of the scientific article “Bee Declines Driven by Combined Stress from Parasites, Pesticides, and Lack of Flowers” are all scientists of University of Sussex, and all of them are bee experts. Dave Coulson published more than 200 scientific articles on ecology of bees, and he is the author of the book Bumblebees; their behaviour, ecology and conservation. (2010)
“Bee Declines Driven by Combined Stress from Parasites, Pesticides, and Lack of Flowers” is an article that talks about several problems that bees are facing now, including parasites, pesticides, habitat loss, and etc. This article is published in the journal Science, which is a peer-reviewed science journal. This article does not provide much detail on each issue relates to bees, but it provides many important and life-threaten issues that bees are facing now. I think it is useful for my advocacy project.
​
​
​
Solution Section
Global Solution
“Policy Mitigating Acute Risk to Bees from Pesticide Products.” EPA, Environmental Protection
Agency, 6 June 2019, www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/policy-mitigating-acute-risk-bees-pesticide-products.
https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/policy-mitigating-acute-risk-bees-pesticide-products
​
This source provides a global solution that can help solve the bees and pesticides problem. This sources talks about EPA’s policy “Mitigating Acute Risk to Bees from Pesticide Products”. EPA ruled in this policy that pesticides can only be used at certain period when bees are not doing pollination works. EPA also restricts the use of some particular pesticides. I think this is the best global solution I found because it provides the most reasonable and effective solution. It is not reasonable to really ban the use of all pesticides, since the United States needs to use a large amount of them every year. However, restrict the time of using pesticides can reduce the harm to the least amount.
​
​
Counter argument
“EPA Approves Pesticide Harmful to Bees.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World
Report,www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-07-12/epa-approves-pesticide-harmful-to-bees.
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-07-12/epa-approves-pesticide-harmful-to-bees
​
This source shows the counter argument/ opposite attitude about the solution, “Mitigating Acute Risk to Bees from Pesticide Products”, that EPA provided. This is a U.S. News article which argues that EPA did not do a good job to help the bees, because they do not ban the use of pesticides. I used this source as a counter argument in my essay. I argued against this source in my essay that not using pesticides at all means the number of harmful bugs will increase, thus, reduce the amount of crops that human can have. I think the best solution is not to ban pesticides, but find a balance between using pesticides and protecting the living environment of bees at the same time.
​
​
Grass root solution
“Five Simple Actions.” Bumblebee Conservation Trust,
www.bumblebeeconservation.org/bees-needs/five-simple-actions/.
https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/bees-needs/five-simple-actions/
​
This source is a web page of the organization “The Bumblebee Conservation”. The Bumblebee Organization works hard to advocate people to protect bees. I researched on its website and think that the organization is credible because it is a huge organization, and it provides many programs. I found that many people have been to their programs in the past. This web page contains five simple tips that it provides for the general public in order to protect bees. The tips include “plant more flowers in your garden”, and etc. These five simple tips are used as grass root solutions in my article.
​
​