Month: September 2012

Spider cakes!

/ Chris Buddle / 2 Comments

My graduate students are a very talented bunch - they are intelligent, creative, and have a good sense of humour. Some of our lab group celebrated birthdays recently, and in honour of this, we had two cakes earlier this week. The first, made by MSc student Sarah Loboda, is the VERY BEST SPIDER CAKE I have ever seen (or eaten!). Check this out:

Spider Cake!

Of course, let’s discuss how anatomically correct that cake is! Two body parts, pedicel, eight legs (coming from the cephalothorax, of course), and a bunch of eyes.

Spider cake! (eyes0

As you may know, most spiders in Canada have eight eyes, but since some do have six, I find it quite acceptable that this spider has six eyes. Furthermore, not all spider eyes are identical so it is appropriate to have two kinds represented on the cake. Well done, Sarah.

And in case that STUNNING MASTERPIECE isn’t enough, another student (Dorothy Maguire) made a cake that is a very good approximation for the female epigynum of wolf spiders in the genus Pardosa.

Pardosa epigynum

And not just any Pardosa: this is diagnostically similar to one of the species that graduate student Katie Sim is working on! Incredible!

….want some proof - look at this image, taken from Dondale & Redner’s text on the Lycosidae of Canada. Enough said.

Pardosa concinna epigynum

The Value of Field Courses

/ Chris Buddle / 8 Comments

Part 1 - Why Include Field Courses in Undergraduate University Curriculum?

Taking students outside the classroom, and into streams, forests, or fields, can be a rewarding experience for both the instructor and the student. I am reminded of this every autumn when I teach an introductory field ecology course as part of McGill University’s Major in Environmental Biology. In this class, we visit many ecosystems, and the hope is that students, through learning outdoors, gain additional insights, and exposure to a suite of experiences they would otherwise not get in a classroom.

That being said, what is the real pedagogical value of field courses? Or, why do we bother with field courses? Sure, it’s fun to be outside, and for those students who like wearing rubber boots and ‘toughing it’ outdoors, it’s much more interesting than a lecture hall. However, is there real value in terms of how content might be delivered or retained? Are field courses just a feel-good ‘gimmick’?

Undergraduate students doing field work in an undergraduate course: hands-on experience

These questions were at the forefront of a teaching workshop we had in May of 2012 (I wrote about this previously) - as part of that workshop, Graham Scott (from University of Hull in the UK), highlighted some of his research about the value of field courses, and this work resonated with a lot of us who teach field courses at McGill. I was particularly interested in reading his paper titled ‘The Value of Fieldwork in Life and Environmental Sciences in the Context of Higher Education: A Case Study in Learning About Biodiversity‘. In this work, there is a nice introduction that states how many people believe and assume fieldwork is valuable because (and I am paraphrasing here):

Field trips are rewarding and satisfying (i.e., FUN) for the instructor and student

Field courses will improve recruitment and retention (i.e., used as a tool to draw students into an academic program at University, and keep them in the program once they arrive)

Field courses enable students to gain key skills, and transferable skills

The mushroom collecting laboratory as part of an undergraduate University course about field biology

This has certainly been my (informal) assessment about the value of field courses. Students demonstrate (through enthusiasm, passion, motivation, and conversation) that they appreciate seeing and doing things outside of the classroom. Earlier this term, when walking around the Morgan Arboretum with my class, we stopped and looked at invasive Noway Maple trees, and my Teaching Assistant was able to show them how to identify the species. Many of the students were able to grab a leaf, right there and at that time, and look at the key characteristics. I like to think this visual and hands-on approach will help the content sink in, long-term, and that students will be able to remember the biology and natural history of Norway maples months or years after the course finishes. I also think they will look at all maple tress a little differently, and think about similarities and differences, and about introduced (or alien/exotic) species. These are big topics, of significance to conservation of biodiversity and environmental science at large. Or, in other words, I think this experience will lead to life-long learning.

Just last week we had a field trip devoted to collections and identification of mushrooms. The students split into groups and collected a diversity of fruiting bodies over the course of the three-hour laboratory. They seemed genuinely enthusiastic and in awe of the diversity of shapes, sizes, colours and smells of the mushrooms. I don’t think this experience could ever be replicated in a classroom setting, or even in an indoor laboratory. Being out in the woods, crouching down beside rotten logs, and learning how to watch for and collect mushrooms is something many of the students had never done before, and I like to think that this kind of experiential learning will stick. Life-long learning again! As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I attribute my love of natural history to my exposure to nature as a child, through field guides and hands-on learning (although in this case the instructor was my father). Field-courses, at a University level, can inspire people the very same way!

In fairness, I have only presented anecdotes and it would be nice to look to the scientific literature for proper studies that test for the pedagogical value of field courses for undergraduate students. This takes us back to the work of Graham Scott and colleagues. Graham et al. worked with undergraduate students and separated them into two groups: one group received instructions and then did a hands-on (in the stream) collection of aquatic invertebrates, and the second group received the same instruction in an indoor laboratory setting (i.e., as a laboratory demonstration) but did not actually do the sampling in a stream. It’s also important to note that the students did not know, ahead of time, whether they were going to participate in a laboratory or field-based activity (there were told to expect ‘practical work’ and be potentially prepared for outdoor activities). In a laboratory, after a short break, from the field/lab work, the students were asked to separate and characterize (draw, label) the biodiversity of the aquatic invertebrates. These specific samples were collected separately (by the instructors) so there was no potential bias associated regarding who collected what samples.

Undergraduate students sampling aquatic invertebrates in an undergraduate course at McGill University

The result? The authors document that the actual hands-on experiences had a real effect on students. Students that had the field component to the activity enjoyed and valued the experience, felt that they learned more effectively, and ‘…were better able to construct a taxonomic list of organisms that they had collected themselves’. Although more research on this topic is required (their sample size was relatively low), this paper does help provide some solid evidence that field courses are, from a pedagogical perspective, valuable.

Field courses are much more than a teaching gimmick: field course benefit a student’s academic experience. Field courses are an effective way to teach and learn course material. Of course, field courses are not relevant to all disciplines, but for students in biology or environmental science programs, field courses often appear in the curriculum, and I would argue they are en essential part of these programs. Universities ought to support and promote their field courses. When developing curriculum for an undergraduate program, field course should be as essential as a microbiology lab. We live in a world that requires people to have experience in all facets of their environment, from shopping malls and urban centres, to corn-fields, marshes, and forests. We are doing a disservice to undergraduate students if our teaching does not venture into the field. That is the “why”.

To finish, I really appreciate a quote from the Discussion of Graham et al.’s paper: ‘Learning is enhanced in the field’. Indeed - this is exactly my perception, and my experiences with field courses suggest this is true. Feedback on my course evaluations speaks to this, also. In my area of teaching, field courses will remain central to the academic program of Environmental Biology, and I encourage others to consider adding field courses to their own program.

Naysayers: We often hear that field courses are too expensive, too difficult, too logistically complicated, and can be done only with small groups of students. These are not valid arguments and in a future post, I will discuss these issues in detail. Part 2 will, therefore, deal with the “how“. Stay tuned.

Reference:
Scott, G.W., et al. (2012). The Value of Fieldwork in Life and Environmental Sciences in the Context of Higher Education: A Case Study in Learning About Biodiversity Journal of Science Education and Technology, 21, 11-21 DOI: 10.1007/s10956-010-9276-x

The laboratory mascot is growing older, just like me.

/ Chris Buddle / 1 Comment

Time marches on.

In my laboratory, I can judge the years by the growth of our lab’s mascot, a Chilean Rose-hair tarantula named “Harriet” (but who also goes by the name of Grillonthosaur). I was away last week, but when I returned to the laboratory on Monday morning, my students were excited to tell me that Harriet is a little bigger than before I left. She moulted, and now has a shiny new coat.

Our lab mascot, with her shiny new coat!

The story of Harriet is kind of amazing. Before Harriet was our laboratory’s mascot, she was the pet of an enthusiastic undergraduate student at McGill. This student loved entomology, and did a project in my laboratory about four months after I started as a shiny-new tenure-track assistant professor. When this student left Montreal, she gave Harriet to me since she could not take the spider with her at the time. That was in the winter of 2003, and Harriet was already several years old then. Harriet is, therefore at least 13 years old and shows no signs of slowing down.

Harriet’s old ‘skin’.

Harriet has seen a lot of changes, and been a passive observer of quite a few graduate student research projects. I am also growing older - I just turned 40 this past weekend. I am pleased to report that I don’t seem to be showing signs of slowing down either.

(by the way, the undergraduate student I referred to left McGill for a MSc in British Columbia followed by a PhD in Australia. She, like Harriet, is doing very, very well!)

Arthropods in the tree-tops: Canopy ecology in Quebec (Part 3)

/ Chris Buddle / 1 Comment

This is the final post in a three part series about studying canopy arthropods in Quebec. Part 1 was about canopy access and Part 2 was about patterns of diversity. This post is about ecological interactions in the canopy.

I had the pleasure of supervising a M.Sc. student, Kathleen Aikens, who was keen to work on a canopy project that looked deeper into some of the ecological interactions occurring in our deciduous forest canopies. This was possible since we had, by this time, acquired a lot of base-line data on arthropods in many strata of the forest. Kathleen’s work included using exclosure cages to see whether or not bird predation might affect arthropods in the Canopy differently than in the understorey. This was exciting work, as it took our laboratory in a new direction, and lets us start to unravel some of the complexities of the food-webs in the tree-tops. Her main result was that birds did have a strong top-down effect on arthropods, and that effect did differ as a function of height. Using some bait trials, we also found that predation by arthropods on arthropods was also stratified. This research suggests that arthropods living in trees in our region of the world are always under significant predation pressure, from both vertebrate and invertebrate predators.

A cage experiment, to assess the effect of predators on insects living in the forest canopy.

More recently, my laboratory has started to collaborate closely with another group at McGill studying “ecosystem services” - this is work done with Elena Bennett, another colleague at McGill University. The research framework with this project is about how different ecosystem services are affected by the fragmented landscape that occurs in a large region just south of Montreal. Elena and I co-supervise a PhD student Dorothy Maguire, who is looking at the ecosystem function of insect herbivory, and studying how herbivory varies as a function of forest size and degree of isolation (i.e., from a large contiguous forest), and she is studying herbivory in the understorey as well as the canopy. Herbivory is closely linked to ecosystem services because of its effect on nutrient cycling, forest aesthetics, and more. Although this project is currently underway, Dorothy is uncovering some interesting results, already. For example, she is finding that levels of insect herbivory differ between the understorey and the canopy, and that forest fragmentation is affecting insect herbivory.

Summary

I have provided some highlights of some of the work that our laboratory has done in Quebec’s deciduous forests (and my apologies to the students who I didn’t mention!). Although we have come a long way, and uncovered some interesting research results, I still feel that the work is just beginning. For example, the bulk of our work has been on only two tree species (Sugar Maple and American Beech), and we have only studied a fraction of the arthropods that exist in the canopies of our forests. I would like to expand the research to include other plant-feeding guilds, bees and wasps. I’m also always curious about the piles of dead and decaying leaves that we find nestled between the crotches of high branches - these micro-habitats surely contain suspended soil (e.g., see Lindo & Winchester 2007), and within those “islands” there should be a host of arthropods. Not surprisingly, the forest canopies in southern Quebec are home to a marvelous diversity of arthropods. It’s a scientist’s model system, and a delightful system in which to work and play.

Me (Chris Buddle) above the canopy at Mont St Hilaire!

Arthropods in the tree-tops: Canopy ecology in Quebec (Part 2)

/ Chris Buddle / 1 Comment

Part 1 of this series highlighted how our laboratory accesses the forest canopy. This post is about our projects related to understanding patterns of Arthropod diversity in Quebec’s forest canopies.

I will first highlight some work done by my former PhD student Dr. Maxim Larrivée. Max started in my lab at the exact time that I received the grant for the mobile lift platform, and he become an expert at this machine, and he proved to be an immensely talented student. His project was focused on understanding the spatial patterns of spider diversity in three deciduous forest sites located within an hour drive of the Island of Montreal. In the first part of his dissertation, Max collected almost 14,000 spiders representing 82 species (Larrivée & Buddle 2009). The spider fauna of the canopy was markedly different from the fauna from the understorey, and it is likely that different mechanisms structure the assemblages in the two habitats.

Overall fewer spiders and fewer spider species were found in the canopy compared to the understorey, but at a species-specific level, there were some spiders that seemed to have a preference for living in tree-tops. For example, the lovely jumping spider (Salticidae) Hentzia mitrata was significantly more common in the canopy. We were also most excited to document the species Mastophora hutchinsoni (Araneidae) in the canopy - this is the famous “bolas spider” and we believe our canopy record may be the most northern record for the species. The Bolas spider hunts by swinging a strand of silk at its prey, and this strand has a “bolas” of sticky capture thread at the end. This species is truly fascinating, and in our system, it is a species that likes the canopy.

Max demonstrating the methods of using a beat-sheet to collect spiders in the forest canopy. Here, he is about 25 m above the forest floor.

The follow-up work to this baseline study was focused on understanding dispersal potential of spiders in the canopy as compared to the dispersal potential of understorey species. Most spiders in our system are small, so we predicated that their main mode of dispersal was via ballooning (i.e., releasing a small strand of silk and letting the wind carry the spider away). We had also hypothesized that dispersal might be one of the mechanisms behind the aforementioned patterns community structure in the canopy compared to the understorey. Max collected live spiders in the canopy and understorey and set them up in a wind-tunnel in the laboratory. He then documented each species’ propensity to disperse by looking at the frequency by which they showed ‘tip-toe’ behaviour (a pre-ballooning condition). In the paper resulting from this research, we reported that the spiders in our system do have high dispersal potential, but that this potential did not differ depending on whether the spider was collected in the canopy as compared to the understorey (Larrivee & Buddle 2011). This was a fascinating area of study, and we are left with as many questions as we started with! For example, if dispersal potential doesn’t differ between canopy and understorey species, what mechanism drives the differences in community structure between the two habitats?

Our laboratory has been studying beetles as well as spiders - although I am personally very interested in spiders, I do recognize the beauty of beetles, and their important ecological roles in virtually all ecosystems. One of Max’s field assistants (Brianna Schroeder) was keen to complete a small project about beetles so she set Lindgren funnels in the canopy and in the understorey. Over 170 species were collected, and once again, the fauna from the canopy was differentiated from that of the understorey (Schroeder et al. 2009).

Max up in the canopy crane!

Two other field assistants that worked with Max (Kristen Brochu and Katleen Robert) also worked on their own projects, and together with my colleague at McGill University (Prof. Terry Wheeler), we are close to finishing up a manuscript to describe more patterns of arthropod diversity as a function of vertical stratification in Quebec’s deciduous forests - this work includes beetles as well as flies (Diptera). Although the responses are not the same for the different groups of insects, we are finding that both beetles and flies show vertical stratification in our study sites.

Stay tuned for Part 3, which will focus on ecological interactions occurring in the Canopy.

Arthropods in the tree-tops: Canopy ecology in Quebec (Part 1)

/ Chris Buddle / 3 Comments

This blog post is reproduced here, with permission, from the Spring-Summer 2012 Newsletter of the International Canopy Network. Given the length of the article, I have split the newsletter into three separate blog posts - this is Part 1.

Canopy research in most parts of eastern Canada is in its infancy, which is somewhat surprising because I think many Canadians feel a significant connection to forests and to trees - you might even argue it’s part of our culture, along with ice hockey and maple syrup. I have spent a lot of time doing research on arthropods in forests, but only relatively recently began to shift my focus upwards to the canopy. The reason is quite straightforward: when studying the biodiversity of insects and spiders in forests, you just can’t ignore the canopy!

PhD student Dorothy Maguire demonstrates “Single Rope Technique” for accessing the canopy.

As I moved (up) into canopy research, I had originally planned on doing some process-oriented, experimental food-web research in the tree crowns. I was optimistic that I could go to the literature to find some base-line inventories and those studies would provide a starting point for my research. I quickly realized, however, that literature on arthropod diversity in “northern” canopies was virtually non-existent (with the notable exceptions being the excellent research done in the temperate rainforest system of western Canada, e.g., Lindo & Winchester 2007, 2008 and related publications). It therefore became clear that the first years of this new research direction would be focused on descriptive biodiversity research. This is not a bad thing as it allows for the kind of work entomologists and arachnologists love to do: trap some bugs, identify them, complete a faunal list, and investigate diversity patterns.

Canopy Access

Our laboratory has used two main methods of canopy access over the past six years: a mobile aerial lift platform, and single rope technique. The mobile lift was acquired by a grant from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. It provides a safe way to get people into the canopy (its maximum height is about 26 m - which in our system, takes us to the upper canopy). Its main limitation is that the lift platform has to be driven into a field site, meaning there must be a 2 m wide trail for access. This means that selection of field sites, and individual trees, can be somewhat biased and limiting. You could also argue that all our trees are on soft forest edges. For that reason, we have more recently starting accessing canopies using the well-known single-rope technique. It has the benefit of getting you to any tree you like, but can be limiting if the researcher needs to complete complicated tasks at the ends of branches. However, we are finding the single-rope technique a valuable method for getting our work done in Quebec forests.

Our laboratory’s “mobile aerial lift platform” used to access the canopy.

Stay tuned for Part 2, which will be about spatial patterns of diversity.

On being a successful graduate student

/ Chris Buddle / 5 Comments

In the spirit of the new academic year, I have decided to post some notes that I give to my own graduate students when they start working in my laboratory. These are compiled from discussions with other people, from my own experiences, and from a graduate class I took in the mid 1990s at the University of Alberta.

During graduate school you will transform from a student of science to a scientist over a short period of time. It is important that you come through this transformation quickly and efficiently. Here are some things to think about, and some pieces of advice as you embark on this journey.

Take responsibility for your career.

Look at graduate school as a career instead of a lifestyle and instead of an extension of your undergraduate. See others for advice and criticism but think for yourself. Your thesis research is your thesis research. Advisors, committee members, and peers are there to help, and to put down some pylons to make sure you don’t drive off the road, but ultimately you are responsible for your career. Do not depend entirely on your supervisor. Be a skeptic, think critically, and ask questions along the way. Use interactions with other people to learn about different viewpoints and techniques and to facilitate enthusiasm about the work in your chosen field.

Think and act like a professional:

  • Form a strong relationship with your supervisor: you must have an excellent working relationship with him/her. They will write letters for you and help you in many intangible ways. Keep your ego outside of this relationship, and deal with any problems as soon as possible and in a transparent manner.
  • Commit yourself to graduate school. Competition in academia is fierce, and only the best and most committed individuals succeed. It’s a lot easier being committed if you have participated significantly in the thesis project and planning from the start!
  • Don’t work two jobs: graduate school is full time, and unless you are registered part-time, you need to treat graduate school like a full time job.
  • Know the literature: collect, read and catalog it. Spend time every week reading papers both within and outside your discipline. Read papers that your supervisor recommends.
  • Collaborate and learn from others: meet with visiting scientists whenever possible; correspond with other people working in your area of research (don’t feel intimidated by this! You’re in the big league now – leave intimidation behind); attend and participate in scientific meetings; participate in scientific discussion groups; join scientific societies.
  • Buy an agenda and use it. Never complain about not having enough time – nobody cares and nobody likes a whiner.
  • Don’t be late: this includes meetings as well as due dates for written material. Be organized, manage your time, and don’t miss deadlines; come to meetings prepared.
  • Do not be afraid to make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes.
  • Read papers written by your supervisor and compare the quality of your work with the quality of his/her paper(s).
  • Hone your oral presentation skills. Give lots of scientific talks, and try to lecture in an undergraduate class: the practice will help.
  • Get experience judging your peers and compare your performance to theirs: you will continue to do this throughout your career
  • Help others: there’s a lot of Karma in the scientific community
  • Publish your work. It is an important and essential responsibility

Comments on publishing:

Keep publications in mind at all stages of your thesis research – this helps with planning and execution, and publishing is a fun and validating experience. Try to design your program of study so that you can produce scientific papers. Keep an eye out for short, peripheral studies that can be done without jeopardizing your main project.

Publish quality and not quantity: don’t fall into the trap of publishing your very good material in Least Publishable Units (LPUs): two or three substantial papers are much better than a string of trivial ones.

Authorship: have a clear understanding with your supervisor and other cooperating individuals about authorship.

Don’t become married to your research project.

Your research should be one component of your life and your graduate school experience, and although it is the most important component, it’s not the only one. Make sure you live a little bit, read outside your area of research, and continue to increase the breadth of your knowledge as well as its depth. Interact with the outside world: you will become a very narrow person if you never escape the ‘ivory tower’. Have fun and find a way to meet people and do activities outside the academic world, and don’t be afraid to communicate your research activities with the non-academic world. This is an important and underestimated skill.

Characteristics of influential scientists.

Influential scientists are not often those with the highest numbers of papers, most graduate students, biggest research grants, etc. They are:

• someone who contributes new ideas to their discipline

• someone who contributes ideas that change the direction of a discipline

• someone who innovates

• someone who synthesizes diverse facts and ideas to develop new paradigms.

Always expect the best.

If you anticipate the worst, chances are you will experience it. Develop a positive attitude, decide what you want and then pursue it. Take full advantage of opportunities, and opportunities seem to come easier if an individual adopts a positive attitude. Be an active and independent person in graduate school.

Graduate school can be a truly enriching and wonderful part of your life, or it can be a miserable and excruciating experience. You have the ability to make sure the former happens, and much depends on attitude, passion, and your ability to get the job done.