Group items tagged

This case study was developed to teach students the importance of understanding the behavior of wildlife, explore the difficulty in making management decisions when the public is invested in a species, and to help students develop critical thinking and public speaking skills. Students learn about the conservation status and behavior of the black rhinoceros by reading a primary literature article and answering a series of questions. They then listen to a Radiolab podcast that explores the moral dilemma of whether it is ethically appropriate to shoot an endangered rhinoceros if the purpose is to raise conservation funds. Students are assigned one of five positions and write essays to prepare for a town hall style debate in which they examine the pros and cons of such a decision. The Radiolab podcast is based on real events, and is also representative of many ethical dilemmas that wildlife managers regularly face. This case study is appropriate for several upper division biology courses.

Humans construct boundaries -- around our homes, our neighborhoods, and our nations -- to bring order to a chaotic world. But we rarely consider how these boundaries affect other creatures. In this episode of Think Like A Scientist, we meet conservation photographer Krista Schlyer, who has spent the last seven years documenting the environmental effects of the U.S./Mexico border wall, and biologist Jon Beckmann, who studies how man-made barriers influence the movement of wildlife. Schlyer and Beckmann have seen damaging impacts of the border wall firsthand, but they remain optimistic. Humans probably won't stop constructing walls and fences any time soon, but planning our boundaries with wildlife in mind can help prevent these structures from causing environmental harm.

This case study explores the controversy surrounding Yellowstone bison (Bison bison) and the relationship between wildlife management and pluralist democracy. In the late 1960s Yellowstone National Park suspended the policy of strictly managing bison by culling in favor of "natural processes" management. This led to dramatic herd growth and to bison exiting the park in winter in search of forage. Montana cattle ranchers reacted angrily for fear that the animals would infect their cattle with brucellosis. Since 2000, several government agencies have administered the Interagency Bison Management Plan, which uses culling to manage the population at around 3,000 head. The resumption of culling has upset environmental groups, while the recently approved expansion of bison habitat beyond park boundaries continues to upset ranchers.  The ongoing political battle between ranchers, environmentalists, Native American tribes and government agencies shows how difficult it can be to balance legislative mandates, ecological values, and conflicting public demands. The case study may be employed in a variety of courses, including American Government, Public Policy, Interest Groups, Environmental Studies and National Parks.

In this special episode, Laura Ling dives deeper into the illegal wildlife trade for DNews Reports. How big is it and how can we stop it?

5:16 video  Evolution of wildlife in NYC

Why is the North American population of monarch butterflies declining? In 1999, a study published in the journal Nature suggested that a variety of genetically modified corn was killing these iconic butterflies. While it was later shown that the conditions in this study did not mirror those in the field, the results garnered a lot of media attention and many people today still believe that monarchs are being killed by GMOs. This case familiarizes students with the plight of the monarchs, encourages them to think about how to test the hypothesis that a toxin is responsible for their decline, and takes a critical look at several studies that investigated the role of Bt corn in the life cycle of monarchs. This interrupted case takes 60-90 min to complete, requires little to no science background, and can be used to explore the ecology and wildlife management of monarchs; risk assessment, toxicity, and exposure; experimental design, the scientific method, hypothesis, and critical thinking; or the relationship between science, the media and the public.

Project Noah is a tool to explore and document wildlife and a platform to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere.

4:13 Bowerbirds with David Attenborough

This interrupted case study introduces basic modeling to investigate a decline in an American marten population on an island in Southeast Alaska. Two summer field technicians working on a long-term field ecology project for one of their professors notice that there are fewer marten captures this year. Through discussions with their professor, conversations with a local fur trapper, and based on their own observations, they develop a plan to model the population and the potential causes of the decline to solve the mystery. Students use Excel or other database software along with life tables and introductory population ecology to investigate three potential causes of the marten population decline. This case was developed for use in an environmental science or wildlife management course but could also be used in an advanced science high school course or general ecology course. It would be beneficial for students to have some background in statistics including how to interpret R-squared values, p-values, and 95% confidence intervals.

This set of mini cases on the ecology of eastern cottontail rabbits is designed to give students practical experience using statistics in a scientific context. Given a dataset and experimental design, groups of students are asked to play the part of a wildlife management researcher to determine the results for each study. Students practice the scientific process and gain experience making hypotheses and predictions, choosing an appropriate statistical test, interpreting and displaying results, and presenting data to others. Students choose between four basic, commonly used, statistical tests (t-test, one-way ANOVA, linear regression, and Chi-square test), and justify their choices. This activity was developed for undergraduate level students and is applicable to biology courses, particularly those dealing with ecology or management. The case is designed for student groups, but could be modified into clicker questions or individual assignments.

With increasing U.S. government support for biofuel production in the late 2000s came increased pressure to convert more land to cornfields for ethanol. To make way for more corn, millions of acres of prairie grassland were plowed under, destroying an extremely diverse wildlife habitat that also served as a large carbon reservoir. This case study focuses on the reasons for and consequences of large carbon losses when prairie grasslands are converted to agricultural lands. Many students are challenged when faced with linking together energy flows, decomposition, and nutrient cycles.  This case gives students the opportunity to consider different pools in the carbon cycle and the fluxes between them in order to model (on paper) an integrated picture of why carbon is lost when prairie grasslands are plowed and planted to cornfields.  Students also consider ways that carbon loss from land conversion due to ethanol production might be avoided via government incentive programs or mitigated via changes to farming practices. This case study was developed for an introductory ecology, environmental science, soil science, or agriculture course.

Habitat loss and disease in the American prairie pushed the black-footed ferret ​to the edge of extinction. Now these underground-dwelling mammals are making a comeback, through a captive-breeding program run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There, baby ferrets-called kits-are raised and released into the wild.​

"Now we have evidence that urinary odor signatures can be altered by changes in the brain characteristic of Alzheimer's disease," said Dr. Bruce Kimball, a chemical ecologist at the USDA National Wildlife Research Center, in a news release. "This finding may also have implications for other neurologic diseases."

In this interrupted case study, students meet a pair of fictional newlyweds on their way to Australia for their honeymoon. Initially eager to enjoy the sun, sand, and sights, Tanya and Julien Brahim end up more intimately acquainted with the local wildlife than they had planned. Tanya is bitten by a venomous arachnid and Julien has a run-in with a dangerous cnidarian. This case study was created to help students solidify their knowledge about cardiac myocytes, particularly ion movements associated with action potential generation in autorhythmic and contractile cells. As students work through the case, they will complete fill-in-the-blank paragraphs describing the heart, diagram membrane potentials and ion movements, and compare and contrast action potentials from different cell types. Written for a course in human physiology, the case requires some prior knowledge of membrane potentials, equilibrium potentials, ion gradients, neuronal action potentials, and skeletal muscle action potentials. An optional pre-case assignment (included in the teaching notes) can be used to make sure that students are familiar with the necessary concepts.

In this case study, the complexity of the Malaysian palm oil industry is examined through the perspective of various stakeholders, namely, villagers, corporations, orangutans, smallholders, conservationists, and an average consumer. Students learn about the plight of the orangutan and the environmental impacts of the palm oil industry but also understand the influence of global markets and the effect of their own purchases. Students are challenged to make ethical decisions, propose policy recommendations, and examine their own contributions to the demand for palm oil. The aim of the case is to provide students with tools to personally champion change. The case is appropriate for undergraduate students in wildlife, ecology, biology, or related classes but can also be tailored for advanced high school science courses.

Now eight years old, USAID PREDICT is a collaborative effort to monitor, predict and prevent emerging diseases, many of them zoonotic, from becoming devastating global pandemics the likes of Ebola. It's led by Jonna Mazet, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Davis's One Health Institute and School of Veterinary Medicine, and also partners with the Wildlife Conservation Society, Metabiota, EcoHealth Alliance and the Smithsonian Institution's Global Health Program.

Squirrels are frequent and beloved residents of college campuses throughout the United States, but oftentimes less welcomed by campus maintenance officials who report squirrels nesting in buildings, interfering with airflow from heating and cooling units, and destroying gutters. In this laboratory case, students act as members of a fictitious "squirrel task force" appointed by their campus administrators to provide recommendations for how to manage their school's squirrel population.  Students work in groups to assess the habitat suitability of their campus for squirrels by identifying and measuring trees that provide seasonal food for squirrels, and by identifying desirable hunting perches for common squirrel predators.  Students conduct squirrel surveys in designated campus zones to calculate the number of squirrels per acre on their campus and compare it with mean squirrel densities reported in forested areas and at a rival institution.  Students then compile and synthesize class data to provide management recommendations for university maintenance officials for either increasing or decreasing campus squirrel populations. Originally developed for an undergraduate wildlife biology course, the case could also be used in a lower-division biology or environmental studies course.

Every year during the foodless winter months, bears enter their den and lapse into a state of extended dormancy and slumber (called hibernation). For the next 130+ consecutive days they do not drink, eat, defecate, or urinate. Rarely do they die from starvation, dehydration, or poisoning from waste buildup while hibernating. How do bears prepare for this period of starvation coupled with significant weight loss? Bears are not only the champions of winter rest, but are also the undisputed champions of non-stop summer eating. They are constantly on the move during late spring and all summer long into late autumn oftentimes covering great distances over diverse habitats in their incessant search for locally and seasonally available food. In this case study, students learn the basics about bear denning, hibernation energetics, the differences in size of bear home ranges, and the nutritional landscape they must navigate to prepare for the long months of winter inactivity and caloric deprivation. The case is suitable for a wide audience, including majors or non-majors in lower- or upper-level undergraduate courses in environmental science, ecology, biology, or wildlife science.

What effects will the rapidly growing field of synthetic biology have on the conservation of nature? The ecological and ethical challenges stemming from this question will require a new and continuing dialogue between members of the synthetic biology and biodiversity conservation communities, according to authors of a new paper.