Designing a Field Project

DESIGNING A FIELD RESEARCH PROJECT

Every student will be required to do an individual and a group project. Group projects should have no fewer than two and no more than five members. An acceptable approach is to do a group project that has individual components. Each component should be a stand alone project, and the group project must be more than just the sum of the parts.

Three basic approaches:

• experimental projects that test a specific hypothesis using replicated experiments or measures of some biological variable • descriptive projects that explore some part of the biota there that is so poorly understood we can't yet form testable hypotheses. Later one can examine that project and propose testable hypotheses that might come out of it. • survey projects like the development of field guides, species lists, or videos that document some aspect of the natural history or culture of Dominica

Examples of each approach:

THE EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH: You have the hypothesis that the density of one of the frog species is a function of the distance from water. A hypothesis like this should have some underlying biological rationale, for example, that sites near water have a higher density of prey species (insects) and therefore frogs should occur at higher densities at theses sites. Based upon your hypothesis, you design an experiment to answer this questions, for example, sampling frog densities along a transect as you move away from the water. You would then use the appropriate graphical and statistical procedures to analyze you data to determine if you reject or fail to reject your hypothesis.

THE DESCRIPTIVE APPROACH: Several of the birds on the island exhibit interesting behavior, and in many cases this behavior has been poorly described. You chose to carefully document the behavior of one or more species of birds, and how this behavior varies over the course of the day, in relation to climate, or by sex. Note that the study might involve a very high level of quantification, however, no specific hypothesis is being generated or tested. Thus the study is descriptive. A similar example involves the measurement of aspects of the vegetation from site to site, either along a moisture gradient or an elevational gradient. If no specific hypothesis is being tested, this would also be a descriptive study.

Even though these studies are descriptive, in the sense that they are non-experimental, they involve the collection of data, and can often be very quantitative.

THE SURVEY APPROACH: This approach involves primarily the development of lists or sequences of qualitative information. We have had several very valuable group projects done in the past of this nature (the guide to the ferns of Springfield, the photographic guide to the herps of Dominica). These projects tend to be non-experimental and not quantitative (thought species lists with relative abundance estimates is an exception). One generally must have a certain level of taxonomic expertise to do species lists.

The video approach has been little explored. Options include video documentation of tourist damage to parks or a video documentary of a particular species.

BASIC THINGS TO REMEMBER!

Be objective. Avoid introducing your own bias into the sampling procedure. Select sites and transects either randomly or regularly. Observe your study organism so that you document the full range of behavior.

Replicate. Select multiple sites for each of your experimental groups. Avoid the trap known as pseudoreplication.

Sample intensively. The more data or observations that you collect, the better you will be able to test you hypothesis or describe the phenomenon that you wish to study.

Quantify. Collect quantitative data when the study dictates, and be careful with your measurement technique.

Understand the biology of your organism. Read about the organism you intend to study BEFORE you go to Dominica. Take along copies of articles or information from books that you can consult while on Dominica. You will do a much better project if your research is guided by some biological principles or understanding.

Introduction to Project Questions and Issues

Individual and Group Projects

Group versus Individual Projects• Group Projects generally involve 3 – 5

people. With 20 students we should have 4 or 5 groups. Group projects can be conducted wherever appropriate on Dominica. Travel is the greatest logistical issue (vehicle size and transit time).

• Individual projects: there will be 20 of these running concurrently, and we also need to get folks to project sites. Individual projects are therefore restricted to what can be done at Springfield and the adjacent Morne Trois Pitons National Park. This provides access to agricultural lands, disturbed habitats, second growth rainforest and mature primary forest.

Project ideas• Survey of pyraloid moths, family Pyralidae and relatives

• Eucharitidae, parasitoids of ants

• Odontomachus, “tac-tac” ants

Some Other Project Ideas

• Impact of development and urbanization on communication (examples include frog vocalizations in urban rural and pristine areas, or a similar project focused on one or more species of birds)

• Documentation of bat vocalizations and call structure, intraspecific variation in calls

More Ideas• Build upon a number of

hummingbird foraging and territory studies using feeders, filming and quantification

• Look at the distribution of certain invasive plants species based upon habitat and level of disturbance

• Associations of butterfly species with flowering plants; degree of species specific interactions

Still More

Get Mick Jagger to come back to Dominica and hike to Boiling Lake with us.

Premise of project is clearly stated in the Introduction, and is based on thorough review of scientific

literature and on-line material, including all relevant previous Dominica projects. All research

hypotheses or goals are clearly stated, as are scientific questions to be addressed by the project.

20 points

All known relevant scientific literature, on-line material and previous Dominica projects are correctly

cited in the paper and assembled into a references cited section.

10 points

Student made effective use of all available field time for gathering data or information, including

number of experimental replications, or other observations, including photographs, videos, sound

recordings

20 points

Paper includes appropriate and clear methods for data visualization and/or statistical analysis including

tables, figures, charts and maps,

10 points

Comments and suggestions by instructors on one or more preliminary drafts are effectively and

conscientiously addressed.

20 points

The degree to which the project has provided clear tests of hypotheses, met the goals set for the

project, or helped to answer questions raised in the introduction are clearly discussed in the Discussion,

and new knowledge or discoveries resulting from the project are concisely summarized.

20 points

Total 100 points

Look at the Projects on the Dominica Website

http://dominica.tamu.edu/