Integrating Community Ecology Into the Study of Parasites: Exploring the Effect of Host Behavior on Parasite Transmission Rates

Abstract

Organismal life cycles are often presented as a set of facts to memorize in undergraduate biology courses. This approach is cognitively demanding for students and fails to convey how central life cycle diversity is in shaping ecological and evolutionary processes. Understanding the causes and consequences of life cycles is especially important when studying parasites with multiple life cycle stages for passing through diverse hosts. We designed a two-part lab activity to help our students gain a better understanding of the ecological interactions driven by parasite life cycles. Part I is a structured guide to reading a peer-reviewed journal article. Part II is a guided exercise in summarizing and interpreting mock experimental data involving a trematode parasite life cycle. These assignments helped students (1) understand how parasite life cycles shape ecological interactions with their hosts, (2) practice making predictions about species interactions using core ecological principles, and (3) practice quantitative reasoning and graph literacy skills by visualizing and interpreting data. We first used this activity as a self-guided lab exercise for an upper-division undergraduate parasitology class that switched from in-person to asynchronous-remote mid-semester. The stepwise structure of the activity allowed us to pinpoint the links in the chain of biological reasoning where students struggled most to guide target topic reviews in subsequent lectures. Here, we provide a summary of the activity, our experience with the activity, and suggestions for adapting the activity for a synchronous-remote or in-person class.