(a) Health and safety.

• Aspects of fieldwork can present a hazard

  • Hazards in fieldwork include adverse weather conditions, difficult terrain, problems associated with isolation, and contact with harmful organisms.

• Hazard, risk, and control of risk by risk assessment

  • Risk is the likelihood of harm arising from exposure to a hazard.

  • Risk assessment involves identifying control measures to minimise risk.

  • Control measures include appropriate equipment, clothing, footwear, and means of communication.

(b) Sampling of wild organisms

• Sampling should be carried out in a manner that minimises impact on wild species and habitats

• Participate in fieldwork, using a variety of techniques.

• Consideration must be given to rare and vulnerable species and habitats that are protected by legislation

• The chosen technique, point count, transect or remote detection must be appropriate to the species being sampled

  • A point count involves the observer recording all individuals seen from a fixed point count location. 

  • This can be compared to other point count locations or with data from the same location gathered at other times

• Quadrats, of suitable size and shape, or transects are used for plants and other sessile or slow-moving organisms

• Capture techniques, such as traps and nets, are used for mobile species

• Elusive species can be sampled directly using camera traps or an indirect method, such as scat sampling

(c) Identification and taxonomy

• Identification of an organism in a sample can be made using classification guides, biological keys, or analysis of DNA or protein

• Organisms can be classified by both taxonomy and phylogenetics

• Taxonomy involves the identification and naming of organisms and their classification into groups based on shared characteristics

  • Classic taxonomy classification is based on morphology.

• Phylogenetics is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among individuals or groups of organisms

• Phylogenetics is changing the traditional classification of many organisms

  • Phylogenetics uses heritable traits such as morphology, DNA sequences, and protein structure to make inferences about an organism’s evolutionary history and create a phylogeny (or phylogenetic tree) — a diagrammatic hypothesis of its relationships to other organisms. 

  • Genetic evidence can reveal relatedness obscured by divergent or convergent evolution.

• Familiarity with taxonomic groupings allows predictions and inferences to be made about the biology of an organism from better-known (model) organisms

  • Nematodes, arthropods and chordates are examples of taxonomic groups.

• Model organisms are those that are either easily studied or have been well studied

  • Model organisms, such as the bacterium E. coli; the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana; the nematode C. elegans; the arthropod Drosophila melanogaster (a fruit fly); mice, rats, and zebrafish, which are all chordates, have been very important in the advancement of modern biology.

• Information obtained from them can be applied to other species that are more difficult to study directly

(d) Monitoring populations

• Presence, absence or abundance of indicator species can give information of environmental qualities, such as presence of a pollutant

• Susceptible and favoured species can be used to monitor an ecosystem

  • Absence or reduced population indicates a species is susceptible to some factor in the environment. 

  • Abundance or increased population indicates it is favoured by the conditions.

• Procedure for the mark and recapture technique as a method for estimating population size using the formula N= MC/R

  • A sample of the population is captured and marked (M) and released. 

  • After an interval of time, a second sample is captured (C). If some of the individuals in this second sample are recaptured (R), then the total population N= MC/R

  • This method assumes that all individuals have an equal chance of capture, that there is no immigration or emigration, and that individuals that are marked and released can mix fully and randomly with the total population.

• Methods of marking animals such as: banding, tagging, surgical implantation, painting and hair clipping

• The method of marking and subsequent observation must minimise the impact on the study species

(e) Measuring and recording animal behaviour

• Some of the measurements used to quantify animal behaviour are latency, frequency and duration

  • Latency is the time between the stimulus occurring and the response behaviour.

  • Frequency is the number of times a behaviour occurs within the observation period.

  • Duration is the length of time each behaviour occurs during the observation period.

• An ethogram of the behaviours shown by a species in a wild context allows the construction of time budgets

  • An ethogram lists species-specific behaviours to be observed and recorded in the study. 

  • Recording the duration of each of the behaviours in the ethogram, together with the total time of observation, allows the proportion of time spent on each behaviour to be calculated in the time budget.

• The importance of avoiding anthropomorphism when analysing behaviour

  • Anthropomorphism can lead to invalid conclusions.