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Blog Post 2: Sources of Scientific Information

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Blog Post 2: Sources of Scientific Information

The article titled Using plant functional traits to understand the landscape distribution of multiple ecosystem services is academic, peer-reviewed research material.

 

It is academic material because:

It is authored by experts in the field who are specialised in the article’s topic.

The article includes in-text citations as well as an extensive reference list.


 

It is peer-reviewed because although the acknowledgements section does not explicitly state that the article was reviewed, the thanks given to those who gave insightful comments can be taken as such.

 

It is research material because it includes a Materials and Methods and a Results section.

Blog Post 1: Observations

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Blog Post 1: Observations – General Brock Park, Vancouver, BC

Observations by: Harriette Laroco
Location: General Brock Park, Vancouver, BC
Date: Monday, 18 February 2019
Weather: Clear, sunny skies; slight wind
Time of Observation: 15:09-15:48

My field research project will cover General Brock Park, in the Kensington-Cedar Cottage neighbourhood in Vancouver, BC. It is a small city park that is 2.11 hectares in size. The park is in a residential area of Vancouver and is frequented by local residents and their pets, as well as wildlife such as chipmunks, crows, and geese. In warmer weather, the park is also frequently used by local sports teams.

Figure 1. Satellite image of General Brock Park using Google Maps.

My first observations were made on Monday, February 18, 2019 when the park was covered in snow. Recent rainfall caused some snow to melt, leaving some grass patches to be seen. The snow had also become icy.

Figure 2. Snow-covered General Brock Park, facing SE

The park is tree-lined with rolling green hills to the south (now snow-covered). Right outside of the park bounds are residential streets and houses. Towards the northwestern side of the park is a small street hockey area and to the southwest is a small playground (Figure 3 and Figure 4, respectively).

Figure 3. Street hockey area at northwestern end of General Brock Park

Figure 4. Playground at southwestern end of General Brock Park

The snow allowed me to observe some animal tracks (Figure 5, Figure 6, Figure 7).

Figure 5. Paw prints

Figure 6. Bird print set 1

Figure 7. Bird print set 2

 

Figure 8. Field notes – Monday, 18 February 2019

Some questions I drew during this initial observation period were:

  1. How has the frequency of human and domesticated animal use of the park affected the park’s vegetation?
  2. Why are chestnut burrs more prominently found towards tops of trees?
  3. Why are chestnut burrs found in greater numbers in the trees found towards the south of the park?

Blog Post 5: Design Reflections

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Blog Post 5,

After reading the Blair article, which is very similar to my experiment and data collection, I realized how my sampling strategy was correct however, I could have replicated my collection not only in time but also in space by observing from different areas in my sample space. There were no difficulties in implementing my sampling strategy, I chose a place close to my home which was easy to frequent as often as I needed. I also picked a species to observe which is easy to spot and count. The results were also not surprising, as my hypothesis was supported by the data. The squirrels are less abundant in areas with high numbers of predator species like dogs. I will continue to collect data the way I have but I will also enter the park from the other entrance, walking into my sample space from another way.

Blog Post 3

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  1. I am examining the health of ash trees along the Rideau Trail of Marshlands Conservation Area in Kingston, Ontario. I want to explore if the density of ash trees in a plot has a correlation with the incidence of emerald ash borer infection.
  2. I chose 5 random locations along the trail and assessed the health of ash trees in plots that are 25 feet by 25 feet. I took an inventory of how many healthy trees there are in a plot compared to ones that show evidence of emerald ash borer infection. Specifically, I examined to see if there are serpentine galleries/trails or cankering in the bark as indicators of infected trees.
    1. For plot A there were 25 ash trees. 3 of these were infected. 12% infection rate
    2. For plot B there were 29 trees. 6 of these were infected. 20.69% infection rate
    3. For plot C there were 20 ash trees. 3 of these were infected. 15% infection rate
    4. For plot D there were 38 trees. 4 of these were infected. 10.53% infection rate
    5. For plot E there were 23 trees. 4 of these were infected. 17.39% infection rate
  3. Based on the preliminary findings it does not seem that there is a clear relationship between the density of ash trees in a plot and the rate of infection. As ash density in a plot increases (greater number of trees), I expect that the number of infected trees would increase because there are more resources available for the emerald ash borer to feed on and lay their eggs. Additionally, closer proximity/abundance of trees would facilitate movement of emerald ash borer from one tree to another.
  4. The predictor variable for this study is the total number of ash trees in a plot (density; continuous variable) and the response variable is the rate of infection of all the trees (measured by observing indicators of infection which are categorical variables then converted into a numerical continuous variable of infected trees).

To improve the initial study design it would be beneficial to examine other signs that are indicative of emerald ash borer infestation.

Field Journal:

Marshlands Conservation Area, Rideau Trail 1400-1700, 18-02-2019, 2 p.m. 5 p.m. -6°C, a few clouds, snow cover, just North of Lake Ontario; wedged between Little Cataraqui Creek to the West of the trail and Cataraqui Golf and Country Club to the East.

 

Rideau Trail

 

Serpentine Galleries

Trees marked with pink chalk to prevent double counting within plots

Measuring tape covering one of the 25-foot edges of the plot.

Blog Post 2: Sources of Scientific Information

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I chose the following research article as my source of scientific information: Patch use as an Indicator of Habitat Preference, Predation Risk, and Competition. 

This article is classified as academic, peer-reviewed research material for the following reasons:  

  • Source is considered academic material because: 
    • It was written by experts in the field. The author of the article Joel Brown wrote the article to fulfill the requirements for a doctorate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona.
    • It included in-text citations throughout the document.
    • There is a bibliography that lists all the sources.
  • It was peer-reviewed by several reviewers and three anonymous reviewers as described in the acknowledgements section.
  • It is research material as it contains both a “Methods” and “Results” section. 

Reference: 

Brown, J.S. 1988. Patch use as an indicator of habitat preference, predation risk and competition. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 22(1):37-44. https://ezproxy.tru.ca/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.tru.ca/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.4600116&site=eds-live.  

Post 3: Ongoing Field Observations at Cinnamon Ridge Burn Site

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After another visit, I decided that 3 or 4 attributes of the disturbed vs. original site might be interesting to measure and contrast.

  1. Different species of plants that might be found in the 2 different areas.
  2. Abundance of individuals of each of the different species, especially the dominant species.
  3. Amount of ground that is open and/or covered by some of the unique parts of the community such as the crust made up of lichens and mosses.

In the paper by Lee, they used three different techniques to sample, which I also used to record and sample for my field study:

  • “walkabout” – in order to assess plants species which occurred at low population densities
  • transects – that would allow them to systematically collect information about the abundance of species
  • quadrats within those transects – to provide a visual estimation of the amount of ground covered by different species using a Daubenmire frame sized at 50cm x 20cm

In addition, since the paper pointed out that physical characteristics were important, I decided to also sample:

  • temperature – using a digital probe
  • soil pH – by collecting a soil sample and using a digital pH meter
  • soil conductivity – by collecting a soil sample and using a chemistry lab at TRU.

Finally, I measured the slope of the area using clinometer, which was a grade of 10%.

This site represents an ecotone, where there is a rapid change in character between the two areas.  The clear difference is the presence of sagebrush in the old area and lack of sagebrush in the burned area.  There was the presence of bunchgrass in both areas but also the presence of particular species that are non-native “weedy”/invasive species in the burned area.

Hypothesis: The more recently assembled plant community in the burned area should have a greater species richness (number of species) than would a climax community in the unburned area.  This would be due to the absence of ground-shading sagebrush.

Prediction: If I collect quantitative data then I will be able to record the presence of more species in the burned area than the unburned area.

I would expect similar patterns with respect to the abundance and other measures of diversity.  On the basis of Hanna, there would be more annual grasses in the burned area than in the unburned area.

Categorial variable: burned vs. unburned

Response: measures of abundance, species richness, diversity index (indices)

 

 

Post 2: Sources of Scientific Information

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Laura Adams

 

a) I have chosen the following research paper, published in the journal Botany, as a source of scientific information:

Plant Community – soil relationships in a topographically diverse grassland in southern interior British Columbia, Canada

Lee, R.N., Bradfield, G.E., Krzic, M., Newman, R.F. & Cumming, W.P. 2014. Plant community – soil relationships in a topographically diverse grassland in southern interior British Columbia, Canada. Botany, 92:837–845.

 

b)  This paper is academic, peer-reviewed research material.

c) This paper is published in the academic journal, Botany, which has a set of guidelines in place where articles are edited and peer-review before articles are published.  It has been written by experts in the field, including Lee, Bradfield (a plant ecology expert), and Cumming who are all part of the Department of Botany at UBC.  Throughout the article, there are references to other papers written by these authors, as well as references to many other articles in reputable peer-reviewed journals.  There is a bibliography at the end of the article listing all of the sources the authors used.  There is also a link to the doi (dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjb-2014-0107) where readers can access the raw data from the study.

The paper reports the results of a field study by the authors, There is a section outlining methods used to perform the experiment, which would allow another experimenter to replicate this study.  There are diagrams (figures) used to demonstrate how the authors performed their sampling.  There is a results section that describes the findings of the study and how data was analyzed.

All of these aspects of this source allow it to meet the criteria for being an academic, peer-reviewed research article.

 

Source:

https://content-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.tru.ca/ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=99345390&S=R&D=a9h&EbscoContent=dGJyMMvl7ESeprI4xNvgOLCmr1GeqLBSsqe4TbOWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGrtE%2BwqLJLuePfgeyx43zx

Blog Post 1: Observations

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Blog Post 1: Observations

Site Visit # 1

  • Observer: Mark Visser
  • Location: Goldbar Park, Edmonton, Alberta
  • Date: January 13, 2019
  • Time: 14:00
  • Weather: -3°C, Clear and Sunny Skies.

The location I have chosen for my field research project is Gold Bar Park located in Edmonton, Alberta on the south bank of the North Saskatchewan River. Gold Bar Park is a City of Edmonton managed park. The entrance to Gold Bar Park is located next to the Gold Bar Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) with the outfall of the WWTP located upstream of the park. The park consists of many kilometres of walking trails (which during the winter months double as cross-country ski trails), picnic shelters, and a washroom facility.

Gold Bar Park can be separated into two ecological communities:

  1. Open Area/Wetland Complex
    • This area in the summer is characterized by a mowed grass field (however the grass field is covered in snow), parking lot, scattered clumps of coniferous/deciduous trees and two man made wetland complexes.
    • Dominant vegetation consisted of shrubs along the boundaries of the wetland and the scattered clumps of trees were dominated by coniferous trees with occasional deciduous trees throughout.
    • Topography in this area was gentle slopes with small rolling hills.

Open Wetland Complex

  1. Forested Riparian Zone
    • This area is a closed canopy riparian forest along the North Saskatchewan River. The dominant vegetation was deciduous trees and shrubs with coniferous trees throughout.
    • An off-leash dog walking trail occurs within the riparian forest at the top of the bank of the North Saskatchewan River.

Riparian Forest

Incidental/Other Observations

  • Ducks observed in the open water area of the North Saskatchewan River downstream of the WWTP.

North Saskatchewan River

  • Red squirrel calling within the riparian forest.
  • Multiple singing Black Capped Chickadee with in the riparian forest.
  • Observed 2 birds within one Wetland Complex.

After visiting the site, the topics I’m interested in further researching would be:

  1. Does the bird species diversity change between the two ecological communities listed above?
  2. Does smell and sound from the WWTP affect abundance of bird densities within the forest adjacent to the WWTP compared to the further you move away from the WWTP?
  3. Do birds prefer to perch in trees with denser cover such as coniferous trees or with less cover such as deciduous trees.

Field Notes – January 13, 2019

Sampling Strategies

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In this exercise I used a virtual forest tutorial to test the accuracy of estimating species abundance using three different sampling techniques: area, random or systematic; distance, random or systematic and finally, Haphazard.

The distance, random or systematic would have been the most efficient model as its estimated time to sample is only 4 hours 43 minutes compared to the other two ranging around 12-13 hours. This is most likely influenced by how spread apart the sample sites are as there are equal sample sites in each method.

Percent error for each sampling technique for the most abundant and most rare species was:

  • Area, random or systematic: Eastern hemlock-  14.9% error. White Pine = 8.3% error
  • Distance, random or systematic: Eastern hemlock = 30.2% error and White pine= 100% (none found)
  • Haphazard, are: Eastern Hemlock= 4.7% and White pine = 90%

The most accurate for abundant species was the Haphazard method at 4.7% error rate. It estimated 448 out of the 469.9 total Eastern Hemlocks in the area. However, this technique over-estimated by double the amount of White Pine. The most effective at the rare species of White Pine was the area, random-sampling technique which had a small error rate of 8.3%. It estimated 7.7 of the 8.4 total White Pine trees. The accuracy trend between abundant and rare species was dependent on the method used. The most constant technique was area, random or systemic where the percent error decreased with the rare but only slightly. The least reliable was the distance, random or systematic which had a high error rate for both species; finally, the haphazard technique had an accurate estimation for abundant species but unreliable estimations for rare species.

24 sampling points allow fairly reliable sampling results for area, random or systematic sampling, but if using the other techniques it would be useful to add more sampling sites to improve estimations of rare species.

Sources of scientific information

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Shannon Myles

January 21st, 2019

A) The source of ecological information that was used is an article published in the scientific journal Aquatic Ecology. The journal publishes various peer-reviewed papers in the field of ecology in all types of aquatic environments. The Aquatic Ecology journal has been running since 1968 and has published 52 volumes since. Its publisher, Springer Netherlands describes the journal has “a multidisciplinary journal relating to processes and structures at different organizational levels.”

The specific journal article that was chosen for the assignment was: “The use of historical environmental monitoring data to test predictions on cross-scale ecological responses to alterations in river flows” (Collof et al. 2018). A paper that looked at data previously collected by hundreds of previous studies in the area to achieve a conclusion. By using the data already at hand, the scientists evaluated the impact of river flow modification to the ecosystem.

Citation: Colloff, M.J., Overton, I.C., Henderson, B.L. et al. Aquat Ecol (2018) 52: 133. https://doi-org.ezproxy.tru.ca/10.1007/s10452-018-9650-y

Link: https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.tru.ca/article/10.1007/s10452-018-9650-y

 

B) The paper is an academic, peer-reviewed research article.

 

C) The academic basis of Collof’s paper is obvious as he and all of his co-writers are experts in the field. A list of everyone that worked on the paper’s affiliations is available. Per example, the author, Matthew J. Collof is a member of the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University and CSIRO Land and Water in Canberra Australia. A list of all the in-text citations is provided in the references section of the article. All the references are themselves, academic papers. The Acknowledgments section of the research mentions that the paper has been reviewed by an anonymous reviewer. The citation goes like such: “We thank […] and an anonymous reviewer for their practical and constructive reviews of the manuscript.” (Collof et al. 2018). Finally, what distinguishes this paper research article from a review material is its precise methods and results. The paper describes how it proceeded to gather information on its subject and then shows the exact results collected. Even if the study used previously collected data from previous studies, it had a goal different than any of those researches. Collof and his team used specific methods that are outlined in the paper to evaluate their own research question based on data scientifically gathered.