Assignment Task
Overview
The major photosynthetic organs of plants (often the leaves) display various physiological, anatomical, and morphological features that are characteristic of various habitats and environments. In this assignment, you will compare two species from a cool temperate rainforest, a dry sclerophyll forest and a coastal saltmarsh, by using data collected in the lab during Week as observed under the microscope. You will describe how these features allow the species to persist in their respective environments. You will also describe how these features may be of benefit to the species under a changing climate.
Questions
- Are the characteristics observed and/or measured for each species from each environment useful adaptations that suit its current habitat?
- What sorts of adaptations would you expect to find in other species growing in the same habitats as these?
- Can you suggest why some cell and/or tissue features might not appear to suit the general environment from which they came?
- Which features of these species are likely to aid their survival with climate change in their respective environments? Why or why not? Consider any threats that might be exacerbated by climate change; e.g. fire, sea-level rise, etc.
The Abstract is a brief one-paragraph outline of your report. For this report, it should be between and words in length and include the following basic components:
- An opening statement(s) that indicates the background, what you were doing, the underlying motivation for the work and what knowledge gap the research fulfils; i.e. why the work is important;
- The methods used to get your results;
- What you found out (the results) – quantifying key results; and
- A closing statement of why the results are important; e.g. what are the implications of your findings?
The Introduction should ‘introduce’ your project. Any background information to indicate what is known of the topic (literature review, including cited references) or that might be necessary for the reader to understand the report should be included as well. A good introduction should incorporate the following:
- Why the study was carried out (perhaps to learn more about how the internal anatomy of leaves reflects a species adaptation to different environments);
- What knowledge already exists about the subject (provide a brief literature review, cite a few papers in which the authors have investigated leaf adaptations, or from the different habitats that we focussed on);
- What the gaps in knowledge are (this should lead to the reason for your research, perhaps there aren’t many people studying the internal anatomy of leaves from these focus habitats?);
- What was studied (in this report, the size of various leaf tissues from species usually found in different habitats);
- What the purpose of the study was?
- Conclude with your aim and/or hypothesis.
Methods should be split into three main sections.
1) The sites/habitats from which the focal species are usually found. This should include some general site information such as location, local climate (which may be found on the Bureau of Meteorology website) and general soils information. Some of this information is included as separate documents on the unit site. Include a map indicating the location of the study sites and refer to that in the text. Include the focal species, (with their authority after first mention) and perhaps provide some brief information about them (whether they’re a tall tree, shrub, fern etc.) and how they fit into their respective plant communities – as canopy forming, mid-storey or ground layer, for example).
2) You should then describe the methods that were used in the laboratory as a class. The aim is to ensure that someone else, without prior knowledge of what you did, could repeat your work. Give a general description of the different lab tasks such as, “We measured the and tissues of each species under X magnification. There’s no need to describe exactly how you calibrated your microscope with the eyepiece and stage micrometre, nor exactly how you made your leaf sections. Also, never list your materials in a report like this.
3) Then you’ll need to describe what manipulations/analyses you did with the data (not how you handled the data entering data into an Excel sheet is just assumed basic data management). Describe which measurements were compared between different groups or species, and whether you looked for statistically significant differences with any formal analyses (such as t-tests or ANOVAs). Don’t describe how you made any graphs.
The Discussion should ‘discuss’ your results, that is, what is the significance of the results? How do your results or arguments compare with work of other researchers? Did you get the results you expected – why or why not? The most frequent mistake made here is that people tend to repeat – not discuss – their results. Include the implications of your findings e.g. what does it all mean with respect to survival of the species and / or with climate change in each of the environments. You’ll need to back up statements that you make by referring to (citing) other’s work. You can still refer back to your own results.
Try to make each paragraph about a specific topic. For example, paragraph 1 of a Discussion section should be a general summary or overview of the main findings. In subsequent paragraphs, focus on particular things relevant to the aims of your study, such as how the positioning of the palisade tissue in each species is/is not a reflection of its specific adaptations to different environments. In another paragraph, perhaps comment on the thickness of the cuticle in different species, and describe/explain how this infers a benefit to the species in different environments. Follow the rubric instructions (below) about what else you might need to include in the Discussion section. Conclude with a sentence that links back to your aims.