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Introduction
Welcome to Ecology 3043 lab. We are happy to have the opportunity to facilitate your
intellectual growth through the study of natural systems in south Florida. This is your course, so you will
have the greatest influence on what you take from it. The ecology laboratory is a dynamic course that is
dependent on interactions among you, your lab mates, and your teaching assistant. Be open and share
your ideas and experiences with your lab mates and teaching assistant.
Who should enroll for Ecology 3043 lab?
Ecology 3043 laboratory is an upper-division course in the Department of Biological Sciences
that draws from three main pools of students. Ecology lab can be used to meet the laboratory requirement
for all students who wish to earn a Bachelor’s degree in Biology. It is also a required course for Education
majors who plan to teach science. The third large pool of students who take this course are typically
Environmental Studies majors. As an upper division course, the lab is very rigorous. We do not shy away
from describing the true complexity of natural ecosystems to students. The result is that some students
who do not have a background in statistics or basic science find this course to be difficult.
Non-biology majors who are not among the three groups of students described above should be
very careful about enrolling in this course. We recommend the Ecology of South Florida course offered
by the Department of Environmental Studies to those students who want to familiarize themselves with
local organisms but do not wish to encounter a full treatment of the ecological structures, processes and
hypotheses that this course provides.
What is the main objective of Ecology 3043 lab?
The main goal for this course is simple. We want you to achieve a practical understanding of how
and why you should study organisms in their natural context. While simple to describe, the task is not
easy. If we are to be successful in achieving our goal, both teaching assistants and students must be
prepared to be active in each lab session. The educated, critical thinkers that we seek to cultivate in
ecology laboratory are the best tools we can develop to ensure that the natural systems of south Florida
and the rest of the world are effectively understood, protected and cared for in the future.
Which natural systems do students investigate in Ecology 3043 lab?
When beginning to learn about a subject as immense as ecology, one approach is to start by
focusing on a familiar environment. The subtropical climate of south Florida allows us to explore
ecological systems that are unique in the continental United States. We use the FIU University Park and
Biscayne Bay campuses (depending on the semester) and the ecosystems of the Everglades as our
“laboratories” for investigating the basic processes that are critical to ecological systems.
Fluctuating sea levels over the last 100,000 years have caused the Florida peninsula to be twothirds wider when water levels were lower and one-third narrower when water levels were higher than
they are presently (Hoffmeister 1974). For the past 30,000 years, south Florida has been home to pine
rocklands, subtropical hardwood hammocks, cypress domes, short and long hydroperiod marshes, coastal
dunes, pond apple swamps, and mangrove forests (Myers and Ewel1990). These are essentially the
vegetation types that we see today in south Florida.
In the past, what is now FIU’s University Park campus was most likely part of the shifting mosaic
of upland and wetland vegetation communities. Just as the campus and surrounding communities are
easily flooded during the wet season from May to November, flooding has likely played an important role
in the ecological function of this location for all of recorded human history (from ~10,000 years before
present). The FIU campus was probably a pine rockland interspersed with hardwood species and sizeable
short to medium hydroperiod wetlands in localized areas of lower elevation. Then, in the mid-nineteenth
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century (1850s), people began constructing the canal system we now find in south Florida to regulate
flooding in the area. Such historical efforts to alter the natural function of south Florida’s ecosystems
helped bring a population boom to Miami-Dade and Broward counties. To this day, Florida’s water
resources continue to be grounds for conflict among land managers, agriculturalists, engineers, and city
planners.
Likely, the earliest settlers of what is now the FIU University Park campus utilized the land for
agriculture. Later, the area became the home for the county airport and fairgrounds. Then, in 1972, FIU
opened as an undergraduate institution. For the last thirty years, construction has continued and more
ponds have been dug to provide additional local flood control. While most areas of the University Park
campus are now under the intense and frequent manipulation of grounds crews, one area has been set
aside. The Environmental Preserve at the University Park campus has remained as a semi-natural
fragment of hardwood and pine forest. The preserve and Hennington Pond provide many opportunities for
the study of the natural systems that once covered larger areas where FIU now exists.
The North Campus of FIU sits on Biscayne Bay and is the setting for the ecology laboratory
during certain semesters. North Campus is adjacent to marine environments and tidal mangrove
communities, offering students who take ecology laboratory there opportunities unique to that campus. In
addition to those distinctive systems, you will also find more familiar aquatic and terrestrial habitats (e.g.,
campus ponds, semi-natural woodlands and managed lawns).
You will learn more about the Everglades ecosystem on our field trip scheduled later this semester.
What can I expect in Ecology 3043 lab?
A typical meeting of Ecology 3043 Lab will consist of a quiz, a brief (~30 minute) discussion of
the daily topic(s), formulation of questions and hypotheses and collection of the data that you will use to
test your hypotheses and reach a conclusion. Your job does not end when our weekly lab meetings close.
It is your job to take the data that you collect in lab, analyze it and summarize your findings in a
worksheet that you will turn in to your teaching assistant. Our requirement that you collect and analyze
data to test hypotheses will reinforce hypothesis-testing as the foundation for scientific investigation of
natural systems (Popper 2002).
Rigorous tests of hypotheses also frequently test the patience of some students. While you may
find it difficult to maintain a large-scale perspective when you are measuring species composition in a
waist-deep marsh or recording herbaceous plant diversity in the Environmental Preserve, we ask for your
patience and endurance. We conduct these experiments so that if you learn the skills well, you will have
the potential to investigate many large-scale questions that may draw your attention in the future.
The Ecology lab manual
The lab exercises are dynamic documents that we are constantly improving to provide you with
the best week-to-week content. You will find them online as downloadable documents. Each week we
will cover various ecological techniques and processes to help you better understand the natural world
around you. The first two weeks will introduce you to field and data analysis techniques commonly
employed in ecology. For the remainder of the semester, we will cover areas of ecological study that
increase in scale hierarchically. Population ecology investigates population structure through life tables,
dispersion pattern approaches, and how populations of different species interact. We will then look at
these same concepts in the context of whole communities. At this scale of study, you will learn how to
diagnose the species diversity of a community and then examine the influence of disturbance on species
diversity in communities. Finally, we will discuss the highest hierarchical level in ecology, ecosystems.
You will study the metabolism of ecosystems and the controls that biotic and abiotic factors have on
ecosystem metabolism.
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Each lab exercise is accompanied by a worksheet (see the Table of Contents online). Your
teaching assistant will give you specific instructions for completing the worksheet assignment for each
exercise. In addition, there are supplemental parts of the lab exercises. The statistical appendix (Appendix
I) will be a source of detailed information for you to utilize during data analysis this semester. Appendix I
is meant to accompany Lab 1 and all remaining labs as it contains examples for each of the statistical tests
that you will be required to perform in ecology lab. The second appendix contains exemplary student
work from past semesters. You should use Appendix II as a guide for formatting and writing your weekly
worksheets.
How can I be successful in Ecology 3043 lab?
There are many ways that students can consider themselves successful in the lab course. A high
grade is one way by which students may measure their own success. Real success, however, is defined by
the student’s ability to take theoretical or abstract ideas about ecological processes and apply them to his
or her natural surroundings. To earn a high grade in this course you must be prepared for a weekly quiz,
attend all of the lab meetings, participate actively, write clear and concise worksheets, and create an
organized, well-researched, thoroughly documented formal lab report. These assignments and the exact
formulation of grades are described in more detail by your teaching assistant in his or her syllabus.
An excellent student will remain focused on the meaning of our lab experiments, which will
allow him/her to move from questions focused on organisms to questions focused on ecosystems with
relative ease. The best students understand the weekly topics from their readings and are able to explain
relevant ideas to their lab partners and the teaching assistant if asked. In order to do well, you must read
and understand the assigned manual sections carefully prior to attending lab meetings. Be aware that all
of the deadlines set by your teaching assistant for worksheets and exams are absolute! It is up to the
discretion of the teaching assistant to permit late assignments, but the default position of the laboratory is
that late assignments are unacceptable. Do yourself a favor and turn in your assignments on time!
Lastly, we encourage you to become involved in active research. Look for opportunities at FIU
because they are all around you. The UMEB (Undergraduate Mentoring in Environmental Biology),
MBRS (Minority Biomedical Research Support), SERC (Southeastern Environmental Research Center),
FCE-LTER (Florida Coastal Everglades -Long Term Ecological Research), and OTS (Organization for
Tropical Studies) programs are all alive and busy on your campus. Professors at FIU also conduct
collaborative research with Fairchild Tropical Garden, Everglades National Park, the United States
Geological Survey, and many other local, state, and federal agencies. Seek them out, and you will find a
whole new world of opportunity available to you. Regardless of your interests, there is a future position
for you to demonstrate your abilities and become involved with a subject that drives you. Good luck!
Literature cited
Hoffmeister, J. E. 1974. Land from the sea: the geologic story of south Florida. University of Miami
Press: Coral Gables, FL.
Myers, R. L. and J. J. Ewel. 1990. Ecosystems of Florida. University Press of Florida: Gainesville, FL.
Popper, K. R. 2002. The logic of scientific discovery. 5th ed. Routledge: New York.