Question

Recent news reports have stated that beekeepers are noticing alarming and sudden disappearance of honeybees. Reason for unusual disappearance is puzzling to scientists and farmers alike. One hypothesis is that Bt containing crops are responsible for disappearance of honeybees. Since every cell of a BT engineered plant contains the Bt gene, every cell also contains the insecticide (Bt toxin) including pollen grains. Some beekeepers and environmentalists worry that, since pollen grains can be blown long distances, the Bt containing pollen grains may negatively impact many different species of insects in the environment.

Question: Design an experiment to test the hypothesis that crops containing Bt are responsible for the decline of the honeybee. Write out each step of the scientific method as you design your experiment. Be sure to consider control, variables, sample sixes, repetition, etc.

Answer 1

The observation here is the decrease in honey bee population and this is being correlated to BT engineered crop plants.

Thus, the hypothesis here, specifically the alternative hypothesis, is that the BT crops result in a reduction in the honeybee population. Hence the null hypothesis would be that BT crops do not result in a reduction in the bee population.

This can be tested using a controlled experiment as follows:

Create a small farm that has BT crops (test sample) and place beehives at the site. In the control set, have a small farm that has the same crops without BT and again place beehives at the site. Observe the bee population at an interval of a month with records of the population every alternate day or twice a week.

At the end of the month, examine the bee population dynamics in both the groups. Repeat the experiment multiple times at least thrice.

To check if the difference is significant a chi-square test or a student's t-test can be performed. If the difference is not significant, the null hypothesis holds true and BT crops are not the cause for decrease in bee population. If the difference is signifcant, the alternate hypothesis is validated and BT crops might be a reason for the decrease in bee population. However, there can still be additional forces that result in this observation.