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Archbold Project FIRST
May Workshop: MAERC field exercise

"Faculty workshops in field
ecology at Archbold:
an opportunity to enrich the
teaching of ecology for your
undergraduate students"

Project First at Archbold Biological Station
In Advance:
  • Briefly describe the site and the project. Originally large winter pastures (semi-native with bunch grasses and Bahia). Often flooded in summer months. Immokalee soils (acid sandy soils with muck soils overlain in many places). Eight pastures (each 80 acres) built two years ago (exterior ditches), not grazed 97, 98. All pastures burned December, 1998. Cattle moved in January 1999, at 4 stocking densities. Moved out mid-April, 1999. Cattle fed minerals and molasses (black tubs), also water troughs at south ends.

Materials:
  • aerial photo of site with pasture boundaries and experimental stocking densities overlaid, buckets including tapes, clippers, scotch tape, color IR maps, ziploc bags, pencils, clipboards, 12" rulers, string, 2 shovels, two augers, sticks, sieves, spring balances, meter sticks, mixed sizes of quadrats, sweep nets, video, camera, binocs, notebooks, grass ID book

Activity:
  • Teams to explore and develop hypotheses worth testing. Possible field projects - consider spatial patterns of cow patties, soil organic horizon zone, plant biomass, plant density, diversity and structure, etc
  • Encourage planning a project that could eventually draw from or contribute to the other interdisciplinary studies underway in this project.
  • Consider appropriate methodologies, test whether they would work and also collect some exploratory data.
  • Groups gave a very brief presentation - hypothesis, methodology, how links into broader project and any exploratory data. No in-depth data analyses.

Results: 
Research projects identified included
  • Group 4: Bradley Bennett, Cindy Bennington, Michael Binford
    The effect of microtopography (tussocks and depresssions) on vegetative diversity
  • Group 2. Suzanne Koptur, Peter May, Stephen Mulkey
  • Group 3 Lyman O'Neal, Earl McCoy, Kaoru Kitajima
    Forage preferences in relation to nutrient content
  • Group 1 Terence Farrell, James Beever
    Different grazing regimes (stocking densities) will result in different above ground biomass. Greater species richness will occur in vegetative communities grazed at intermediate stocking densities
  • Group 5.Henry Mushinsky, Mark Brenner.
    Stocking density will affect stature and structure of vegetation (height) and thus affect insect diversity and abundance.

Evaluation: 
Evaluate whether met goals of MAERC field project
Evaluation by concept mapping
We used concept mapping - a large scale drawing or diagram (wheel, web, map, flow chart) to show the mental connections the group makes between the major concept we focused on - the multiple effects of grazing in pastures - and other concepts they learned today, or are already familiar with (see Angelo and Cross 1993, page 197). This concept mapping exercise enabled groups to….
  • Develop ability to apply principles and generalizations already learned to new problems and situations (relevance of ecology to other disciplines and usefulness of human modified areas for ecological study).
  • Develop ability to draw reasonable inferences from observations
  • Develop ability to synthesize and integrate information and ideas across disciplines (interdisciplinary nature of project)
  • Develop ability to think holistically
  • Learn facts of this subject (also compare with background probe)
    • Evaluation by group participation
  • Ability to follow instructions directions and plans
  • Ability to work productively with others
  • Post drawing on the wall for all groups to review
    Concept Map 1
    Concept Map 2
    Concept Map 3
    Concept Map 4