The goals of this assignment are to
- develop context and technical knowledge for completing independent research through guided reading,
- develop skills for critical reading and summarization of scientific literature, and
- summarize scientific literature for final research report proposals and presentations
The instructor will develop a reading list for each student individually in order to:
- develop a broad background of the context and importance of your research question,
- provide information on technical aspects of your project, and
- provide examples of similar studies or approaches in other systems.
You should spend approximately 1-1.5 hours reading and summarizing each reading. As you read, you will create an annotated bibliography and write a separate entry summarizing each of the articles or book chapters assigned for your project. For each reading, provide a 200–400 word critical summary of each reading. For each entry, include the title, author(s), publication year, and journal or book title in the form of a proper bibliographic citation. See the Scientific Style and Format Citation Quick Guide for details on format for formatting bibliographic citations. The guiding prompts below provide guidance to help you evaluate each article critically. Depending on the focus of each individual reading, the emphasis of your summary will change
Some readings from the reading list are designed to provide project context, thus in your summary, focus on the importance or background of the problem or question and general findings (See Evaluation questions focused on research context below). Other readings are provided for technical guidance. For these, emphasize the study design, methods, or detailed summaries of results (See Evaluation questions focused on technical guidance below).
The summaries will form the basis for an introduction and discussion of your final research report. In your annotated bibliography include any diagrams, figures, or tables that you feel concisely demonstrate an important or relevant aspect of the reading. Screen captures can be useful for adding supporting material such as relevant figures or tables (Instructions for screen captures: Mac/Win).
Consider the following guiding questions while reading. The prompts guide critical reading and summary of each text. It is not necessary to respond to each prompt in every reading summary. However, please address the most relevant prompts in each summary.
- Why did the authors conduct this study? What is the overall problem or question being addressed? What are the complexities of the issue? For whom is the topic important and why? What work has been done before to answer this question?
- Why is this reading included and how does it relate to your research question?
- How might this question be relevant for longleaf pine forests or other forests of the southeastern US?
- What is already known about the topic under investigation, and what remains to be understood?
- What are the overall and specific findings of this study? Would you expect similar or different results applied to your study system, and why?
- What additional sources cited in this reading may you want to explore further?
- What approach do the authors use to answer the main question?
- Are there any methods or techniques utilized in this study that may help address your research question?
- How may the methods used in the study need to be adjusted for use in your research system?
- What measurements were made in this study and how may they be applied to your question?
- What are the overall and specific findings of this study? Would you expect similar or different results applied to your study system, and why?
- What are the overall conclusions of the study? Do you agree or disagree with them?
- What do you still not know or understand about the reading? What scientific questions remain following this study?
- What additional sources cited in this reading may you want to explore further?
In the short sample annotation entry below, the student includes three paragraphs: a summary of the research question, summary of the results, and a reflection on its applicability to his own research.
This example is shown as a table to illustrate the various components, but you should write your annotated bibliography entry in a narrative format.
| Citation information | Battaglia, MA, P Mou, B Palik, RJ Mitchell. 2002. “The effect of spatially variable overstory on the understory light environment of an open-canopied longleaf pine forest.” Canadian Journal of Forest Research 32(11): 1984-1991. |
|---|---|
| Research question | Battaglia et al. were interested in how different forest treatment types would affect spatial variation of understory light availability in a long-leaf pine ecosystem in Southwest Georgia. Long-leaf pine historically endure a frequent, low severity fire regime that creates a patchy mosaic forest structure, and this study is an attempt at understanding how to restore that forest structure to favor seedling regeneration of long-leaf pine |
| Treatment design | This experiment used 3 different treatment types to reduce basal area and increase frequency and size of gaps; control (uncut), single tree removal, small group removal, and large group removal. |
| Results summary | The results of this study found that the large group removal created the most variation in canopy size and frequency across a spatial scale. This treatment arrangement created clumps of trees, with large and well defined gaps in overstory canopy. The single tree removal took gaps that were already present and made them slightly larger, while still leaving large portions of undisturbed forest. The large group removal created for a more heterogeneous structure, suggesting that it is not the amount of basal area that is important, but rather the spatial arrangement of the basal area removed to create favorable conditions for long-leaf pine. However, it was noted that this study did not look at the effects on understory plants that may compete with long-leaf pine. |
| Application to project | This experiment is similar in that it is looking to create a patchy mosaic forest structure through means of mechanical treatments. Like my portion of the microsite project, this study only looked at the light level components of forest treatments, as the understory light levels can be indicative of other abiotic conditions |
| Questions and dialogue | Another point that I was interested in, is that the large group removal did indeed increase heterogeneity across the board, but according to their graphs it did not result in any gaps less than 40%. Is this unaccounted for because it was part of the forest left undisturbed, therefore not treated and not included in the treatment results? Or was this the arrangement of the forest before treatment (based on the control treatment graph)? I would imagine that for the sake of structural and compositional complexity, you would still want to keep some of these patches, even if still trying to favor long-leaf pine. |
You will complete an annotated bibliography entry for a total of ten peer-reviewed research articles or book chapters. Using the assigned reading, complete bibliography entries (using the example above as a guide) for each of the eight assigned readings. Please also conduct a literature search using Google Scholar to identify and read and annotate an additional two relevant readings of your choice. You can receive up to 2.5 points for each of the 10 bibliography entry for a total of 25 points.
You will earn 2.5 points for each bibliographic entry that clearly meets the following criteria (0.5 pts each)
- summarizes the main research question and its importance,
- summarizes the overall main approach and methods of the study
- clearly links the implications to your own project
- includes dialogue or additional questions, and
- Includes a proper bibliographic citation