2.1 FIELD TECHNIQUES FOR BIOLOGISTS

Question 1

With regards to health and safety, what is the difference between fieldwork and lab work?

Answer 1

There are a wider range of hazards associated with fieldwork than with laboratory work

Question 2

What is the difference between the risk and the hazard of something?

Answer 2

Risk - how likely it is. Hazard - how harmful it is.

Question 3

Which potential hazards must be assessed in fieldwork?

Answer 3

Hazards associated with terrain, weather conditions and isolation

Question 4

What is important when sampling wild organisms?

Answer 4

Sampling technique must be appropriate to species being sampled and minimise impact on species and habitat

Question 5

Special consideration must be given to?

Answer 5

rare and vulnerable species protected by legislation

Question 6

Name six techniques for sampling wild organisms.

Answer 6

Transect, point counts, remote detection, quadrat, camera traps, scat sampling

Question 7

Describe transect sampling.

Answer 7

Sampling carried out at particular intervals along a line or band.

Question 8

What can transect sampling determine?

Answer 8

Changes in community across an environmental gradient

Question 9

Describe a point count.

Answer 9

Gathering of observational data from a selected stationary location.

Question 10

What can a point count determine?

Answer 10

Species abundance

Question 11

Describe remote detection.

Answer 11

Monitoring subject from a distance with the aid of sensors

Question 12

When is remote detection useful?

Answer 12

When obtaining data on a global scale or from a difficult to access area

Question 13

Describe quadrat sampling.

Answer 13

Using a grid to ensure that a standard area is sampled each time a measurement is made.

Question 14

What are the two requirements of quadrats?

Answer 14

They must be uniform and area of grid must be known.

Question 15

When are quadrats used?

Answer 15

When sampling sessile and slow-moving organisms

Question 16

Define sessile.

Answer 16

Fixed in one place - immobile

Question 17

How are mobile species sampled?

Answer 17

Through capture techniques

Question 18

How can elusive species be sampled?

Answer 18

Camera traps (direct) or scat sampling (indirect)

Question 19

What is scat sampling?

Answer 19

Counting droppings

Question 20

What must sampling be?

Answer 20

Random, stratified and systematic

Question 21

What is central to biological understanding?

Answer 21

Classification of life

Question 22

How can a sample/organism be identified?

Answer 22

Using classification guides, biological keys or analysis of DNA or protein

Question 23

What does familiarity with taxonomic groupings allow?

Answer 23

Predictions and inferences to be made between the biology of an organism and model organisms

Question 24

What is a model organism?

Answer 24

The best-studied organism within a taxonomic group

Question 25

What can genetic evidence reveal?

Answer 25

Relatedness between organisms obscured by divergent or convergent evolution

Question 26

What is divergent evolution?

Answer 26

Evolution of a species into two or more different forms

Question 27

What is convergent evolution?

Answer 27

Organisms that are not closely related independently evolve similar traits

Question 28

What are the three domains?

Answer 28

Bacteria, archaea and eukaryota

Question 29

Name the 5 main divisions of the plant kingdom.

Answer 29

Mosses, liverworts, ferns, conifers, flowering plants

Question 30

Give a feature of the mosses.

Answer 30

No seeds or vascular tissue

Question 31

Give a feature of liverworts.

Answer 31

Nonvascular spore-producing plants

Question 32

Give a feature of ferns.

Answer 32

Vascular system (can grow upwards from soil)

Question 33

Give a feature of conifers.

Answer 33

Trees with needles or scaly leaves and pinecones

Question 34

Give a feature of flowering plants.

Answer 34

Flowers (for more successful reproduction)

Question 35

What is the animal kingdom divided into?

Answer 35

Phyla

Question 36

Name the 5 main phlya of the animal kingdom.

Answer 36

Chordata, arthropoda, nematoda, platyhelminthes, mollusca

Question 37

What are chordata?

Answer 37

Vertebrates and sea squirts

Question 38

What are arthropoda?

Answer 38

Joint-legged invertebrates

Question 39

What are nematoda?

Answer 39

Round worms

Question 40

What are platyhelminthes?

Answer 40

Flatworms - have internal organs but no body cavity

Question 41

What are mollusca?

Answer 41

Diverse phyla, many with shells

Question 42

How are model organisms used?

Answer 42

They are used to obtain information that can be applied to species that are more difficult to study directly

Question 43

Give an example of a model bacteria.

Answer 43

E. coli

Question 44

Give an example of a model flowering plant.

Answer 44

Arabidopsis thaliana

Question 45

Give an example of a model nematode.

Answer 45

C. elegans

Question 46

Give an example of a model chordate.

Answer 46

Mice, rats

Question 47

Why is monitoring populations important?

Answer 47

To assess environmental impact of factors (eg pollutant)

Question 48

Name a method of estimation population size.

Answer 48

Mark and recapture

Question 49

What is the mark and recapture formula?

Answer 49

N = MC/R

Question 50

What does mark and recapture assume?

Answer 50

All individuals have an equal chance of capture and there is no immigration or emigration

Question 51

Give 5 examples of marking.

Answer 51

Banding, tagging, surgical implantation, painting, hair clipping

Question 52

What is important to consider when marking?

Answer 52

The method of marking must minimise the impact on the study species

Question 53

What is an ethogram?

Answer 53

A catalogue of observed animal behaviours/activities in a wild context

Question 54

What does an ethogram allow?

Answer 54

The construction of time budgets

Question 55

Name three time measurements.

Answer 55

Latency, frequency and duration

Question 56

What is latency?

Answer 56

The time between the onset of a stimulus and response

Question 57

What must be avoided when describing behaviour?

Answer 57

Anthropomorphism

Question 58

What is anthropomorphism?

Answer 58

Attribution of human motivation, characteristics or behaviour to non-human animals