UNESCO has identified education for sustainable development (ESD) as a key factor in the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Education is important in developing awareness of how to preserve natural ecosystems and promote the uptake of renewable energy sources. Ecology education in primary school aims to give students a scientific foundation to further their education in biology and develop environmentally literate citizens who will protect, restore and promote the sustainable use of natural ecosystems. This early education includes awareness of how human welfare depends on functional ecosystems to provide food, clean water and oxygen. However, previous studies have shown that young students face serious challenges when constructing a holistic view of complex ecological relationships. In this study, we interpret students’ written texts and drawings when, in small groups, they were asked collectively to describe necessary functions in an ecosystem, as a final task after a series of lessons on ecology. By focusing on students’ expressed ideas on the availability of energy and matter in the ecosystem, we construe four models. The students in our study propose, firstly, that energy flows or can circulate, and secondly, that matter circulates, is provided by the sun, or is created anew. Moreover, the students often express fragmented processes, combined in different ways. According to our results, we propose aspects that can inform the design of primary school teaching of ecology for sustainable development. 

Rapporten redovisar en undervisningsmodell i en biologikurs för lärarstu-denter. Syftet var att höja studentaktiviteten genom att låta studenter reflek-tera över och gemensamt bearbeta ämnesinnehållet. Alla föreläsningarspelades in och avslutades med ett antal reflektionsfrågor som studenternadiskuterade på den digitala kurssidan. Interaktionen mellan lärare och stu-denter under föreläsningar byttes ut mot diskussioner under schemalagdareflektionsseminarier. Varje seminarium resulterade i ett protokoll somläraren skrev och som sedan lades ut på kurssidan som en av flera resurserför instudering till avslutande tentamen. Utvärderingen visar att modellen uppskattats av såväl lärare som studenter.

Att undervisa om evolution och förutsättningarna för evolutionär anpassningi skolan är mycket viktigt och leder bland annat till en förståelse för varför vibehöver värna om biologisk mångfald. Detta menar Lena Wennersten, tidigareverksam som mellanstadielärare men numera som forskare och lärarutbildarevid Linnéuniversitet i Kalmar. Här berättar hon om egna experimentför att testa vikten av genetisk variation inom arter.

Många elever har svårigheter i att skapa mening kring naturvetenskapliga koncept. Tidigare studier inom biologiämnet visar att elever har svårt för att beskriva och tolka hur näringsvävar och andra komplexa begrepp hänger samman. Undervisning och lärande inom naturvetenskapliga områden är beroende av en stor mängd representationer som illustrerar fenomen som är för små, stora, abstrakta eller komplexa för att kunna beskrivas enbart med ord. En förutsättning för att elever ska kunna skapa mening kring naturvetenskapliga begrepp är dels att de kan tolka de representationer som används i undervisningen, dels att de aktivt använder representationer. De möjligheter och utmaningar som elever upplever i sitt meningsskapande i samband med ett eget konstruerande av representationer har rönt alltmer intresse; dock saknas studier som specifikt rör ekologiundervisningen. Syftet med denna studie är att identifiera elevers olika syn på komplexa ekologiska koncept och illustrera på vilket sätt eleverna försöker kombinera dessa för en större helhetsförståelse. Insamlad data består av bilder som elever skapat under ett grupparbete och dessa tolkas ur ett socialsemiotiskt perspektiv. Resultaten indikerar att eleverna fokuserar på representationernas ytliga egenskaper, snarare än den underliggande strukturen, samt att strukturen och vetenskapligheten i elevers visuella beskrivningar av ekologiska koncept skiljer sig åt. Eleverna uppvisar svårigheter när de försöker kombinera faktorer kopplade till olika kretslopp. Vidare visar resultaten att eleverna behöver stöd i att skapa en helhetsbild av ekologiska processer och att analys av elevers representationer kan användas för att identifiera elevers svårigheter. Detta kan möjliggöra ett djupare och mer vetenskapligt resonerande i det naturvetenskapliga klassrummet.

Teaching and learning in biology and other science disciplines are highly dependent on representations illustrating phenomena too small, big, abstract or complex to be described by words only. Many students have difficulties learning scientific concepts and lack an idea of “the bigger picture”. Earlier research in biology implicate that students have difficulties describing and interpreting food webs and other concepts concerning ecological systems. One area that is attaining a greater interest is the learning possibilities when students’ actively construct representations. Very little attention has, however, been paid to this line of research in the area of ecology. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to identify students' different views on complex ecological concepts and illustrate the manners by which students attempt to link them together for a more holistic understanding. Data consists of students’ drawings and interviews, that together can give a better understanding of how students take advantage of actively constructing representations. Results indicate that students’ interpretations and ideas regarding ecological concepts differ widely. They describe biological concepts with different levels of abstraction and show difficulties combining abiotic and biotic factors in biological cycles. The results give further insights into how explicit focus on ecological process and concepts can be used to scaffold students’ construction of representations. Furthermore, teachers can employ such representations for formative assessment. A better understanding of how students' active construction of representations influences their opportunities for meaning making will increase the opportunities for a deeper, more scientific, reasoning in the science classroom.

Biological diversity is threatened by exploitation, fragmentation of natural habitats, pollution, climatechange, and anthropogenic spread of species. The question of how among-individual variation influencesthe performance of populations and species is a poorly explored but currently growing field of research.Here, we review 31 experimental and 14 comparative studies and first investigate whether there is empiricalsupport for the propositions that higher levels of among-individual phenotypic and genetic variationpromote the ecological and evolutionary success of populations and species in the face of environmentalchange. Next, we examine whether and how the effect of diversity depends on environmental conditions.Finally, we explore whether the relationship linking population fitness to diversity is typically linear,asymptotic, or whether the benefits peak at intermediate diversity. The reviewed studies provide strong,almost invariable, evidence that more variable populations are less vulnerable to environmental changes,show decreased fluctuations in population size, have superior establishment success, larger distributionranges, and are less extinction prone, compared with less variable populations or species. Given theoverwhelming evidence that variation promotes population performance, it is important to identifyconditions when increased variation does not have the theoretically expected effect, a question ofconsiderable importance in biodiversity management, where there are many other practical constraints. Wefind that experimental outcomes generally support the notion that genetic and phenotypic variation is ofgreater importance under more stressful than under benign conditions. Finally, population performanceincreased linearly with increasing diversity in the majority (10 of 12) of manipulation studies that includedfour or more diversity levels; only two experiments detected curvilinear relationships.

Large founder groups and habitat match have been shown to increase the establishment success of reintroduced populations. Theory posits that the diversity of founder groups should also be important, but this has rarely been investigated. Here, experimental introductions of color-polymorphic Tetrix subulata pygmy grasshoppers into outdoor enclosures were used to test whether higher phenotypic diversity promotes establishment success. We show that the number of individuals present one year after introduction increases with color morph diversity in founder groups. Variance in establishment success did not decrease with increasing founder diversity, arguing against an important contribution of sampling effects or evolutionary rescue. Color morphs in T. subulata covary with a suite of other functionally important traits and utilize different resources. The higher establishment success in more diverse founder groups may therefore result, in part, from niche complementarity. Variation in establishment among groups was not associated with differences among source populations in reproductive capacities.

Gene flow is often regarded a random process that homogenizes differencesbetween populations and constrains local adaptation. However, the matching habitat choicehypothesis posits that individuals actively choose those microhabitats that best match theirspecific phenotype to maximize fitness. Dispersal (and possibly gene flow) may thus bedirected. Many studies report associations between habitats and phenotypes, but they mayreflect selection, plasticity or adaptation rather than matching choice. Here, we test twopredictions from the matching habitat choice hypothesis by manipulating the dorsal colourof Tetrix subulata, a pygmy grasshopper. (1) Is microhabitat choice flexible such thatdifferently manipulated phenotypes distribute themselves differently in a microclimaticand solar radiation mosaic? (2) If they do, are their fitness prospects higher in the morepreferred microhabitat? We find that individuals painted white or black do distributethemselves differently, with black individuals residing in habitats with less radiation, onaverage, than white individuals, demonstrating that microhabitat choices are plastic. Furthermore,white females had more hatchlings than black ones in the increased radiationtreatment, and this was mainly due to increased mortality of black females under increasedradiation. These findings provide rare experimental evidence in line with predictions fromthe matching habitat choice hypothesis.

The matching habitat choice hypothesis posits that individuals actively choose those microhabitats that best match their specificphenotype to maximize fitness. Despite the profound implications, matching habitat choice has not been unequivocally demonstrated. Weconducted two experiments to examine the impact of pigmentation pattern in the color polymorphic pygmy grasshopper Tetrix subulata onhabitat choice in a laboratory thermal mosaic arena. We found no behavioral differences in the thermal mosaic among pygmy grasshoppersbelonging to either pale, intermediate or dark natural color morphs. However, after manipulating the grasshoppers’ phenotype, the utilizationthrough time of warmer and colder parts of the arena was different for black-painted and white-painted individuals. White-paintedindividuals used warmer parts of the arena, at least during the initial stage of the experiment. We conclude that microhabitat choicerepresents a form of behavioural plasticity. Thus, even if the choice itself is flexible and not genetically determined, it can still lead to spatialgenetic structure in the population because the phenotypes themselves may be genetically mediated