Managing populations of fish and wildlife species is a complex process. It requires obtaining accurate information concerning the size of the population, its distribution, its age structure and sex ratio, and the rates of production and mortality. Often this information is not available or must be inferred from crude indices. To sift and evaluate this information, the biologist must use his/her knowledge of population dynamics, quantitative and analytical skills, computer models and good measures of intuition and common sense to arrive at a proper strategy for managing the population. The purpose of the field/analysis project is to give you practical experience in various aspects of this process.
The following sections outline various considerations to bear in mind while designing, conducting, and writing up your field project.
Determine the status of a fish or wildlife population of your choice and make recommendations concerning the future management of this population. Depending upon the species that you select, your efforts may concentrate on some of the following areas: gathering and analyzing population abundance data through time, evaluating previously collected abundance data through time, estimating reproductive and mortality rates, modeling the growth of a population, modeling the response of a population to changes in management, evaluating the long-term viability of a population, or asking a new population question with published data. Finally you might choose to estimate the abundance, sex ratio, age distribution, mortality rate, growth rate, etc. of a local population in the Moscow area.
You may use one of several data sets found at s:\courses\wlf448\PopulationData. You may choose one of these populations or you may work on a different species for which you have access to reasonable population data (an excellent source for population abundance data through time is the Global Population Dynamics Database. Alternately you may choose to work on a population of fish or wildlife from some other region which is of great interest to you and for which excellent information has been published by biologists in the scientific literature (e.g. wolf population on Isle Royale) and you would like to perform new and original analysis of this published population data. (Note: Simply reporting someone else's results without answering any new questions or performing any new analyses is not acceptable and you will have extreme problems avoiding plagiarism.) You may also wish to use data from a project that you have worked on, either as part of another course or another setting. This is permitted but note that a new project(study objective) is required and must be different from work previously done --no double dipping!
You may work individually or with one other student (with approval) to plan your project and gather your data/observations. Choose your coworkers carefully! A group of 2 will be expected to gather twice as much data and perform proportionately more analyses than a single individual. Groups will submit a single proposal but for your final report you must complete your own individual analysis and write up your results, discussion, and conclusions independently.
You should look at a recent article published in the Journal of Wildlife Management (JWM) and use these guidelines for the proposal and report. These format guidelines are available on the web (http://joomla.wildlife.org) or as downloadable PDFs from the WLF448 course website (JWM Manuscript Guidelines).
**Note: The format for a submitted publication is different than the format that appears in the printed journal. Your paper will need to be in the format of a submitted publication. Any proposal not meeting the guidelines will be returned for revision. Final reports not meeting guidelines will be graded accordingly.
The proposal is the first component of the project. As a wildlife or fisheries biologist, manager, or researcher you will probably write numerous proposals during your career. Such proposals will likely contain the following four parts required for this exercise plus an additional part; a budget. (Note: This is different than requirements in other classes and does not include a budget.)
Title page - Indicate title, class title and semester, members of the group, date, instructor, and guidelines (JWM) being followed. **Note: This is the only page that will not follow the guidelines for submitting a paper. The rest of the paper should follow those guidelines exactly.
Introduction (Justification) - This section should present a review of the history of the population and any pertinent literature review of the subject, an indication of why the study should be conducted (not because it's required!), and the purpose and/or objectives of the study. Please note that conducting an in-depth literature review must be a key part of preparing any proposal. You have excellent resources available to you at the Univ. of Idaho library. In essence, convince me the study is worth doing and be very precise in the objectives you hope to accomplish.
Description of the Study Area and Population - A short and concise verbal description of the study area and population should be presented along with any pertinent maps. Basic habits should be described and percentages given, if obtainable.
Methodology - This is the "meat" section of the proposal. Many studies are "doomed" before they ever get going simply because the investigator did not take sufficient time to develop a good plan of attack. Present any assumptions you may have to make about your population(s). Present the statistical analyses you plan to use (e.g., model selection criteria, confidence intervals around estimates of the population, chi-square or Students t tests, etc.). Be precise in designating exactly what you are going to do. Put your biometry to use!
Literature Cited - You must cite the source for all information that you did not gather personally. Follow the format of Journal of Wildlife Management (JWM) exactly. Note that personal communications and unpublished reports on the internet or in gray literature are not considered reputable sources because they are not peer-reviewed with attendant standards of scientific credibility and reliability. Such citations should never constitute more than 10-20% of your sources and are not listed in your Literature Cited section. If you can't find at least 5 peer-reviewed publications to cite, you haven't made an adequate effort to review previous work on your topic of interest.
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Deadline for turning in proposals is 5:00 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 31, 2011. For each day the proposal is late, 5 points will be deducted from the determined score to a maximum deduction of one half the points. Any part of a day is considered a whole day. |
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Students working as a group should submit one joint proposal and all students will receive the same grade for the proposal. Note that such a proposal will be expected to evidence proportionately more creative thought and effort than proposals from single students. |
Title Page: 5 points - Based on completeness, clarity of title, and neatness. Title should be 10 words or less.
Introduction (Justification): 10 points - This should be limited to a maximum of 3 pages double spaced. Grade based on clarity, completeness, and conciseness.
Description of Study Area: 10 points - Description should be limited to 1 page. Maps must be in black ink and neat.
Methodology: 20 points - Show me how good a planner you are and present it to me in a clear, concise manner so that anyone could go out and repeat the study in the same way, if necessary. Results of any "pilot" studies may be included.
Literature Cited: 0 points - Pay attention to detail. You'll use most/all of these citations in your final report, so you might as well get them right, now, when errors won't cost you any points.
Overall Impression: 5 points - Proposals are often made or lost on the grounds of the initial or overall impression of the reviewer.
Total points = 50.
A major component of most research jobs is communicating study objectives, approaches, methods, and results in a variety forms including oral presentations. You will gain experience in this important aspect of research by giving a short (4 min) presentation on your proposed research during your laboratory section the week of Nov 14-19 (week before fall recess). Students should use information from their written proposals to create a short PowerPoint presentation that lays out their questions, approach, and expect design.
Audience feedback from this presentation may be used to adjust study design or approach prior to the final analysis and report. You are expected respect fellow colleagues by remaining for all presentations and staying actively engaged (ask questions, offer feedback).
The report will consist of eight parts, of which the first four will have been presented previously in the proposal, but must be presented here in a condensed and/or modified version. Each student in a group will submit an individual report based on his/her own analysis and conclusions from analyzing the data.
1. Title page (should look like 1st page of JWM guidlines-address, running head, Title, Your name and addres, abstract, keywords, journal version(JWM 00(0):00-00, 20XX)
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
4. Description of study area
5. Methodology
6. Results (see below)
7. Discussion and Conclusions (see below)
8. Literature Cited (see below)
Abstract (#2)
Give only the very pertinent pieces of information. Check journal guidelines for length restrictions. Do not under-estimate the importance of a well-formulated abstract - it is often the only part of a paper people read (not in this case, however!).
Results (#6)
In this section, you will present what you found. The section is expository. That is, the investigator explains to the reader in a simple, concise, scientific way, what was found. The data are analyzed statistically, if appropriate. If the results of more than one subject are presented (e.g., population estimates, age structures, model results, etc.), they are categorized and presented separately. In essence, you expose the facts found in the study. Why particular objectives or results were or were not obtained may be presented, but a discussion as to how the facts relate to other published works is not presented here; this "discussion" is reserved for the next section. Clarity is absolutely essential in this section. If the results can be misinterpreted, they will. Do not use flowery adjectives or adverbs as they only add confusion or take up valuable space in a journal. Words such as very high, highly significant, or strongly correlated are relative to the reader and unnecessary. When appropriate and necessary, use probability levels to indicate how "strongly" the results were correlated, or how significantly different the population means were. For example, you might want to say: "The age structure of the harvested population changed during this period of time (Chi-squared = 4.92; P < 0.05)."
Discussion and Conclusions (#7)
This section allows the investigator to relate his material to other published works. Do the results reconfirm other similar studies? How do the results differ? If they differ, why? Here again you should be citing other peoples results from the refereed literature. Although speculation is generally frowned upon in many scientific journals, it will be allowed in this paper. Do not be afraid to "stick your neck out" and philosophize a bit on your results. Since you are the expert on your subject, offer your opinion, where appropriate, on the possible interpretation of your results, but be sure to note that it is your opinion. Make recommendations for the future management of this population.
Literature Cited (#8)
All references cited in the body of the paper must be reported correctly and completely in this section. Editors are very "nit-picky" on this section, and readers are very irritated when they want to use a source and find it to be incorrect, incomplete, or missing. It is the responsibility of the writer to double-check every source, preferably from the original, so that it is cited correctly. Be sure to check this after typing, virtually letter by letter, comma by comma, before handing in the report. Editors used to require use of standard abbreviations for names of journals, but now most journals require full titles rather than abbreviations. Follow the style in the Journal of Wildlife Management or North American Journal of Fisheries Management. Remember, if you have someone else type the paper, it is your responsibility to see that everything in the manuscript is correct. Misspelled words (typos) are frowned upon. Note that you do not typically cite internet sources in your literature cited, unless they constitute a peer-reviewed scientific publication such as Conservation Ecology or other publications of reputable, permanent organizations or institutions. Typical internet sources are cited in the body of the text just like personal communications (see above under Literature Cited section of Proposal).
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Deadline for turning in final reports is Friday December 9, 2011 in class. For each day the report is late, 5 points will be deducted from the determined score up to a maximum deduction of one half of the points. Any part of a day is considered a whole day. |
Example Manuscript
GRADE BREAKDOWN (FOR FINAL REPORT):
Format: 10 points. Based on exact adherence to JWM guidelines.
Abstract: 5 points. Based on conciseness.
Sections from Proposal (Title page, Justification and Introduction, Description of Study Area, and Methodology): 20 points
Results: 25 points - maximum 3 pages. Based on clarity of presentation, not only verbally, but use of tables and figures will also be considered. Note: Use figures to show a trend and tables if you think it necessary for the reader to see specific data. Use of appropriate statistical tests will be evaluated.
Discussion and Conclusions: 25 points - maximum 3 pages. Based on clarity, brevity, interpretation of data and comparison with other published work.
Literature Cited: 10 points - 1-2 page(s) should be sufficient. Based on correctness (as determined by style in JWM).
Overall Impression: 5 points - Is the manuscript worthy of publication?
One last comment on style - for many of you, this may be the first time you have written a paper in scientific form. It is quite different than writing a standard term paper in English 102. For instance, do not use footnotes at the bottom of a page. Footnotes are acceptable in tables if correctly done and used sparingly. Look at a recent article in the Journal of Wildlife Management. WATCH THE DETAIL!
“A fundamental goal of education is to produce students who can evaluate ideas – both analysis and synthesis – and who can produce significant original thoughts. Plagiarism is simply repeating words or thoughts of other people, without adding anything new. Therefore, submitting a plagiarized paper – in addition to the wrongful conduct – does not demonstrate the level of understanding and skill that an educated person is reasonably expected to have.” (R. B. Standler. 2000. Plagiarism in colleges in USA. http://www.rbs2.com/plag.htm
“Plagiarism means using another’s work without giving credit. You must put others’ words in quotation marks and cite your source(s) and must give citations when using others’ ideas, even if those ideas are paraphrased in your own words.” (http://sja.ucdavis.edu/sja/avoid.htm)
“Plagiarism is a form of theft. Taking words, phrasing, sentence structure, or any other element of the expression of another person’s ideas, and using them as if they were yours, is like taking from that person a material possession, something he or she worked for and earned.” (J. Cochran, Wake Forest University, http://www.guilford.edu/original/ASC/TWZ/define.html)
“Note that the intent of a plagiarist is irrelevant. It is no defense for the plagiarist to say “I forgot.” Or “It is only a rough draft.” Or “I did not know it was plagiarism.” (R. B. Standler. 2000. Plagiarism in colleges in USA. www.rbs2.com/plag.htm)
Plagiarism violates the University of Idaho code of academic conduct. The departmental policy is consistent with the UI policy, regulation O-2, “Consequences for academic dishonesty may be imposed by the course instructor. Such consequences may include but cannot exceed a grade of “F” in the course.”
"Plagiarism is a serious issue. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Even a sentence or two plagiarized in a long document is inexcusable. If you are uncertain about how to cite sources, or have other questions about potential cases of plagiarism, visit with me prior to handing in an assignment."
How do I avoid plagiarism? you might wonder. The answer isn't too complicated. Just think back to your basic study skills training: Start your writing effort well ahead of the final deadline, take good notes on what you read rather than grabbing text off of electronic sources like the internet, then simply place everything that is an exact or close-to-exact quote in quotation marks and scrupulously cite your sources. Most cases of plagiarism are quite obvious and the commercial sites available on the internet now make it fairly simple for faculty to find the source of your plagiarized material. One of the most serious risks occurs when you do a joint project with other students. Even if you personally did not plagiarize if you sign your name to a joint project proposal containing plagiarized material you become personally liable for the plagiarized material. Don't do it yourself and make sure it doesn't happen on a group project. I and other faculty in the Fish and Wildlife Dept. consider plagiarism such a serious breach of professional standards (comparable to illegal harvest of fish and game) that any student proven to have committed plagiarism will receive an F and 0 points on the assignment, may fail the course and will be tainted by this unethical behavior on any recommendations for jobs, graduate positions, etc. in the future.
Matt Albert's 2004 Project on Fecundity of Chinook Salmon
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Revised: 06 December 2011
