BY380 – WRITTEN HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT 1

HOW ECOLOGY IS COMMUNICATED BY OTHERS

Due IN CLASS Thurs, Oct. 15

The purpose of this assignment is to introduce you to some important articles in ecology, and allow you to explore how information is presented in these articles. Choose a paper from the lists of relevant papers at the end of each chapter in your Ricklefs text or in the Literature Cited section in your Gotelli text. Restrict yourself to articles published in the following journals:

Trends in Ecology and Evolution

Conservation Biology

Journal of Wildlife Management

Evolution

Oikos

Oecologia

Journal of Animal Ecology

Journal of Applied Ecology

Ecology

Ecological Applications

American Naturalist

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

Ecological Monographs

Canadian Journal of Zoology

Functional Ecology

You need not read the associated chapter yet – go ahead and browse to a chapter that looks especially interesting to you. Find the article in the library. Please do not check out the journal – use it on the spot or copy the article and return the journal to the shelf so it can be available to others in the class. Choose a paper that reports original results, rather then one of those that synthesizes other people’s work.

Please Note: Morgan Library’s journal collection is still flood-impacted so you may need to get articles via inter-library loan. This takes time which you will not have if you choose to start this assignment at the last minute.

Using not more then three double-spaced typed pages (font size 10 or larger) with 1-in margins, address the following questions. Number each answer (1-7). Answers to questions 3-7 should be in paragraph form, using complete sentences and proper grammatical structure. Please turn in a double-sided copy of the article with your paper.

  1. Give the complete citation for the article (just as it is done in the text) and indicate the source of the citation (which text and which chapter if it is from Ricklefs). Also indicate how this source is summarized in the textbook.
  2. List at least 5 words that were used in the article that you did not completely understand, as they were used.
  3. What questions(s) were the authors asking?
  4. Did the scientist(s) do an experiment, use the comparative method or develop a model to address the question(s)? Explain how they designed the experiment or comparative study. Did they use controls and treatments? Did they replicate the experiment? What were their response variable(s)? Perhaps the article is theoretical with little "hard" data. If so, does the model that is presented make sense? What assumptions does the model make? Is there good evidence to support the structure of the model?
  5. Summarize their results. You can use graphs or tables to summarize the key results but do not repeat verbatim what is in the paper – that is plagiarism.
  6. What did the authors conclude? Did they mention any alternative hypotheses that could have explained their results?
  7. List three questions that the article leads you to ask. Describe how you would design an experiment to test one of these questions.

This assignment is worth a possible 100 points. Grading will be based on clarity, organization, and thought.

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