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VOLUME 19: Table of Contents TEACHING ISSUES AND EXPERIMENTS IN ECOLOGY
EXPERIMENTS

DA3-BES: Exploring Complex Adaptive Systems Using Dynamic Multi-Agent Models for Honey Bee Colony Environment Simulation

AUTHORS

Benjamin Wingerter1, Rubi Quiñones2, and Dominic Cristiano3

1School of Computing, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68583

2Department of Computer Science, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL 62026

3School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68583

Corresponding author: Rubi Quiñones (rquinones@siue.edu)


ABSTRACT

In this activity, students will learn about complex adaptive systems and ecological resilience through the evaluation of our novel multi-agent simulation, DA3-BES (Dynamic Three-Agent - Bee Environment Simulation). Students will use DA3-BES to study the impacts of a variety of dynamic multi-agent environmental parameters on honey bee colonies followed by a comprehensive evaluation of the influences of parameters. The simulation allows students to hypothesize, perform analytics, and answer concluding questions and thoughts.

FOUR DIMENSIONAL ECOLOGY EDUCATION (4DEE) FRAMEWORK

  • Core Ecological Concepts:
    • Organisms
      • Abiotic and biotic features of the environment
    • Community
      • Stability - resistance, disturbance
      • Behavioral ecology
  • Ecology Practices:
    • Quantitative Reasoning and Computational Thinking
      • Modeling and simulation
  • Human-Environment Interactions:
    • How humans shape and manage ecosystems
  • Cross-cutting Themes:
    • Spatial and Temporal
      • Scales, stability and change

CLASS TIME

This experiment would take 2 labs/classes for setup and experimentation. This assumes class time is 60 to 90 minutes. Any answering of discussion questions will happen outside of the classroom.

OUTSIDE OF CLASS TIME

Students should read the assignment prior to coming to class. It is also recommended that students follow steps 1 to 5 in the 'Simulation Tutorial' Section prior to the activity. Discussion questions should be completed outside of class time.

STUDENT PRODUCTS

Students provide written answers to three sets of questions following the completion of the exercise.

SETTING

This activity is conducted in a classroom or remote environment. It requires access to a computer where the student has permission to download and run the software.

COURSE CONTEXT

This activity is designed to be conducted in a class size of 30-40 students, or how many students an instructor can support in a classroom.

TRANSFERABILITY

This activity was designed for students in ecological and non-major computer science courses. It contains sufficient background information to understand multi-agents, simulation behavior, and complex adaptive systems. Furthermore, this content can be incorporated into any course that covers complex adaptive systems.

DOWNLOADS

Description of other Resource Files:


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank the Council for Resilience Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for providing their knowledge and expertise on complex adaptive systems. The authors of the Repast Simphony multi-agent modeling suite deserve recognition for building the libraries upon which this simulation was built.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DGE-1735362. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Also, the authors acknowledge the support provided by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Grant number NEB-21-176 and NEB-21-166 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Plant Health and Production and Plant Products: Plant Breeding for Agricultural Production.

CITATION

Benjamin Wingerter, Rubi Quiñones, and Dominic Cristiano. August 2023. DA3-BES: Exploring Complex Adaptive Systems Using Dynamic Multi-Agent Models for Honey Bee Colony Environment Simulation. Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology, Vol. 19: Experiment #1. https://tiee.esa.org/vol/v19/experiments/wingerter/abstract.html



A honey bee (Apis mellifera) extracting food from a flower while foraging. Licensing: Public Domain. Source

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