Authentic Ecology Field Investigation for Large (or Small) General Biology Lab Courses
Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2017, Volume 38
Carolyn Schultz & Anna Strimaitis
Abstract
This is a two-part community ecology lab that engages students in an authentic field investigation. In part one, students plant pitfall traps for crawling invertebrates in three different habitats. On the day of the planting, students observe biotic and abiotic components of the habitats, discuss community interactions, and predict which organisms might fall into the traps. The following lab meeting, the catch is quantified and specific adaptations that may have benefitted the organism in its habitat are noted and related to natural selection and evolutionary change. Data is depicted in graph format and is compared over many semesters to reveal trends.
Keywords: community ecology, biodiversity, adaptation, fitness, field investigation, sampling methods, species accumulation curve, ecosystem diversity
