Advanced Higher Biology Unit 2 KA 1

Field techniques for biologists

What are some examples of hazards in fieldwork?

Adverse weather conditions, difficult terrain, problems associated with isolation and contact with harmful organisms

What is risk?

The likelihood of harm arising from exposure to a hazard

What does risk assessment involve?

Identifying control measures to minimise risk

What do control measures include?

Appropriate equipment, clothing, footwear and means of communication

How should sampling be carried out?

In a manner that minimises impact on wild species and habitats

What should consideration be given to? (In sampling)

Rare and vulnerable species and habitats that are protected by legislation

What must be appropriate to the species being selected?

The chosen technique, point count or remote detection

What does a point count involve?

The observer recording all individuals seen from a fixed point count location.

What can a point count be compared to?

Other point count location or with data from the same location gathered at other times

How can plants and other sessile or slow-moving organisms be sampled?

With quadrants (of suitable size and shape) or transects

How can mobile species be sampled?

With capture techniques, such as traps and nets

How can elusive species be sampled?

Directly using camera traps or an indirect method such as scat sampling

How can identification of an organism in a sample be made?

Classification guides, biological keys or analysis of DNA or protein

How can organisms be classified?

Taxonomy and phylogentics

What does taxonomy involve?

The identification and naming of organisms and their classification into groups based on shared characteristics

What is classic taxonomy classification based on?

Morphology

What are the taxonomic ranks?

Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species

What is a mnemonic to help remember taxonomic ranks?

Do Kings Play Chess On Fine Grained Sand, or Dumb King Phillip Came Over From Great Spain, or Does Kim Prefer Cocaine Or Fentanyl Gone Sour?

What is phylogenetics?

The study of the evolutionary history and relationships among individuals or groups of organisms

What does phylogenetics use?

heritable traits such as morphology, DNA sequences, and protein structure to make inferences about an organism's evolutionary history and create a phylogeny

What is a phylogeny (phylogenetic tree)?

A diagrammatic hypothesis of its relationship to other organisms

What can genetic evidence reveal?

Relatedness obscured by divergent or convergent evolution

What does familiarity with taxonomic groups allow?

Predictions and inferences to be made about the biology of an organism from better-known (model) organisms

What are some examples of taxonomic groups?

Nematodes, arthropods and chordates

What are model organisms?

Those that are either easily studied or have been well studied

What are some examples of taxonomic groups which have been very important in the advancement of modern biology?

Nematode: C. Elegans

Arthropod: Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly),

Chordates: Mice, rats and zebrafish

Bacterium: E. Coli

Flowering plans: Arabidopsis Thaliana

What can information obtained from model organisms be used for?

They can be applied to other species that are more difficult to study directly

What is convergence?

The process whereby organisms NOT closely related, independtly evolve similar traits as a result of having to adapt to similar environments of ecological niches

What is divergence?

The process whereby groups from the SAME COMMON ancestor evolve and diverge by accumulating differences, eventually resulting in the formation of new species

What can give information of environmental qualities?

Presence, absence or abundance of indicator

What can be used to monitor an ecosystem?

Susceptible and favoured species

What are some examples of indicator species?

Air pollution indicators (lichens),

Freshwater indicators (Mayfly nymphs, stonefly nymphs),

High pollution levels indicators (Rat tailed maggot, bloodworm)

What do indicator species have?

Specific adaptations to allow them to survive where pollution levels are high (and oxygen levels are low)

What is used to estimate population size?

The mark and recapture technique using N\=MC/R

What do N, M, C and R stand for in the equation N\=MC/R?

N\= size of total population, M\= Size of 1st sample captured, marked and released, C\= Size of 2nd sample, R\= Number of marked individuals in second sample

What does the mark and recapture technique assume?

1. All individuals have an equal chance of capture
2. There is no immigration or emigration
3. Individuals that are marked and release can mix fully and randomly with the total population

What are some methods of marking animals?

Banding, painting, tagging, hair clipping, surgical implantation

What MUST the method of marking and subsequent observation do?

Minimise the impact on the study species

What is a susceptible species?

Absence or reduced population indicates a species is susceptible to some factor in the environment

What is a favoured species?

Abundance or increase population indicates it is favoured by the conditions

What is animal behaviour?

Simply what the animal is doing or how they are reacting

What is ethology?

The study of animal behaviour

What are some of the measurements used to quantify animal behaviour?

Latency, frequency and duration

What is latency?

The time between the stimulus occurring and the response behaviour

What is frequency?

The number of times a behaviour occurs within the observation period

What is duration?

The length of time each behaviour occurs during the observation period

What does an ethogram of the behaviours shown by a species in a wild context allow for?

The construction of time budgets

What is anthropomorphism?

The attribution of human motivation, characteristics or behaviours to non-human animals

What can anthropomorphism lead to?

Invalid conclusions

What does an ethogram do?

List species-specific behaviours to be observed and recorded in the study. Recording the duration of each of the behaviour in the ethogram, together with the total time of observation allows the proportion of the time spent on each behaviour to be calculated in the time budget