User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
While conducting the field research on moles and their predators, I learned a great deal more than I expected about research techniques and ecology.
It was necessary to change my design a few times, as I acquired feedback from my instructor. Primarily the adjustments included how to conduct the samples in an accurate manner, and how to gather data efficiently while ensuring replicates were conducted to limit the possibility of errors due to small sample sizes. In retrospect I may have complicated my project by selecting a predator and prey model rather than something more simplistic such as non moving organisms like grasses or lichen in microhabitats. Regardless the challenge (and fun) was to find a way to sample my communities accurately.
Participating in this course and engaging in these activities has given me an appreciation for ecology. The rich complexities of how sampling, research, statistics, natural history, geography and even geology are brought to bear on a problem.
While I do not consider myself an ecologist, I have enjoyed the process and will likely look at the natural world differently now. The blessing in all of this has been that I have learned some basic tools on how to see how communities interact and have a new found appreciation for ecology.
