Scientific studies do not just hatch from our brains fully cooked. They take time to develop and plan. For field ecologists, the process of identifying field sites and understanding what species they contain is a critical first step for any study.
We will break this pilot study down into two phases. Phase I focuses on assessing potential study sites, and the species available there. This will prepare you for Phase II: data collection. But, just as importantly, Phase I provides a foundation for the model development and experiment planning that we are doing in class.
Individual Work
Goal 1: Identify potential field sites
Goal 2: Identify common plants at each site
Components: Go exploring! (2-4 hrs)
Plant ID using Seek app
Field book entries
Assignment: Canvas Q’s & picture upload
Team Discussion (1-1.5 hr)
Goal: Decide what habitats and plant species to focus on
Assignment: Canvas questions
Make your own field trip! Your task is to identify places that would be suitable for collecting data. For our purposes, “suitable” means
Not cultivated: no one is actively planting or weeding
Not mowed
Accessible for you -- this could mean different things to different people. If you don’t have a car, then a site 10 miles away is probably not accessible. If you have a car, you can go farther afield, but you still need a safe and legal place to park. These logistics are important considerations in choosing a site.
Safe: I don’t want you hit by a car, falling off a cliff, breaking a leg, suffering a poison ivy rash, getting arrested, or getting mugged. Use your common sense.
Where should you explore? The Siena campus is a great place to start, and you can certainly do this entire project on campus. But there is no need to limit yourself to Siena. In particular, if you are a commuter, or if your family home is local, you are very welcome to explore beyond campus. (This could have the added benefit of making a transition into remote learning earlier, if COVID forces us into another lockdown). Many local neighborhoods have small pocket parks, nature preserves, or undeveloped wild areas. Roadsides or strips of land between commercial properties are also likely candidates. Keep your eyes peeled -- you might be surprised how many wild areas jump out at you when you start looking for them.
Whether you’re staying on campus or exploring your home turf, take yourself on a field trip by foot, bike, or car. Take your field book with you. For each place that you visit, take notes following the Keeping a Field Book guidelines .
I expect that you will visit at least 3 suitable sites. By “site” I mean a unique habitat/place combination. So one location with 3 different habitats would work, as would 3 different locations each with wooded habitat, or anything combination of habitats. Do TRY to include at least 2-3 different kinds of habitat, if you possibly can. The more places you can survey now, the more ideas you will have for your model and main experiments, and the more successful your project will be.
Now it’s time to figure out what plants are here. At each habitat, use the Seek app to identify four or more of the most common plants you find. You will need to take your ID to at least genus, but preferably species. Note that you do not need cell signal for Seek to work -- if you’re worried about data usage, you can put your phone into airplane mode.
Take a photo of each species, and make a field book entry for it.
As you progress through multiple habitats, you may start seeing the same plants over and over again. That’s useful information, write it down! But also push yourself to identify at least 4 new plants at each place. The more plants you identify now, the more options you’ll have for your main experiments.
upload a photo of each habitat you visited (4 photos).
use your phone to scan your field notes, and upload the resulting pdf to your team's shared drive
enter your species list for each habitat to your team’s shared Google Sheet
answer questions on Canvas (Pilot Check-in: Individual Assignment)
Arrange a time to meet face-to-face as team. Your choice whether that’s in person, Zoom, Google Meet, conference call, or something else -- but IT CANNOT BE A TEXT CHAIN OR GROUP CHAT! You must actually be able to speak to each other!
At your meeting, you should accomplish the following things. You'll be uploading your notes and answering a few questions in the Pilot Check-in: Team Assignment in Canvas
Choose one person to take notes.
Each team member should describe the habitats they found on their field trip.
Were there any habitat types that everyone has access to?
How many habitats from the list have the team covered, overall?
Look at the team’s species lists together.
Are there any plants that everyone found?
Are there any plants only one person found?
Did anyone notice plant species with especially prominent herbivory?
Did anyone notice plant species with little to no evident herbivory?
Did anyone have trouble either finding sites or identifying plants? Were they able to resolve their problem? If not, what step needs to be taken next (maybe bring it up in your meeting with me?)
Decide what question you want to explore, as a team, for the pilot study.
In general, formulating a question means thinking about what comparisons you want to draw. You’ve got 4 team members, so if each person is measuring something different, what will you be comparing? Remember, you can’t compare apples to oranges. So something should be kept the same across all 4 team members. See examples in the box below.
Given your question, decide what sites to revisit and what plant(s) to focus on
For the pilot, every team member will be going back to one of their sites and measuring herbivory for one plant.
Example 1: the team asks “How does goldenrod herbivory change in different habitats?”
Everyone measures goldenrod. Briana focuses on a meadow; Muhammad focuses on an unmowed roadside; Taylor focuses on a small drainage culvert, and Fred focuses on an unmowed strip by a school athletic field.
Example 2: the team asks “How does Virginia creeper herbivory change over a light gradient?”
Everyone measures Virginia creeper. Briana focuses on the interior of a woodland in very deep shade; Muhammad focuses on the interior of a woodland with a more open canopy and dappled sunlight; Taylor focuses on the edge of a woodland; Fred focuses on a sunny unmowed strip next to a parking lot .
Example 3: the team asks “What species are most/least grazed in woodland habitats?”
Everyone works at one of their wooded sites. Briana focuses on Virignia creeper; Muhammad focuses on black oak; Taylor focuses on white asters; Fred focuses on catalpa.
Example 4: the team asks “How is herbivory different a forest versus a meadow?"
They wanted to choose one plant to work on, but their species lists don’t have enough overlap. But then they realize, they could split up to test two different plants! Briana focuses on Virignia creeper in the woods; Muhammad focuses on Virginia creeper in a meadow. Taylor focuses on catalpa in the woods; Fred focuses on catalpa in a meadow. Now they can compare woods vs meadow for two different species.
*Yes, you are welcome to steal one of these examples for yourselves!
Note that the least interesting design would be 4 different species in 4 different habitats. Can you see why that would be least interesting?
Upload your discussion notes to Canvas (if notes were handwritten, upload a photo)
Answer the Team Assignment questions in Canvas
Schedule your team meeting with me
Every student should write the following in their field book:
My task is to measure herbivory in _________ (species) at ___________ (site).
Take a photo of your statement and upload it to Canvas.