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358 Field NotebookTen percent of your course grade derives from the quality of your field notebook, due Monday 03NOV03. Between disciplines, field notebooks have no universal format, content, or data/computation requirements, nor can they. The guiding rule is that Your purpose is to record evidence in detail. I suggest that, in addition to writing your identification info (name, address, phone, e-mail, etc.), you should also write your SPECIFIC research question on the very first page of your notebook. Refer often to this to keep focus. I sometimes receive field notebooks so ornate and finished in appearance that they would shame Michelangelo. These are immediately suspect. A field notebook is your record of on-site observations, often made under conditions of haste, inclement weather, distraction, and fatigue. It should not look as if you spent several consecutive afternoons sketching in a fern bar. Although your field note taking should meet the objectives below, it is unrealistic that it will have polished appearance and form. In field notebooks CONTENT COUNTS MOST, not beauty. [BACK] As an example of how raw these can look, below is an excerpt from my own fieldbook:
Pretty sloppy, no? What can you expect from a note taker carrying 13 kilos of gear, recording data for many hours across eleven kilometers, while climbing 720 meters of relief? (Oh, yeah; and it started snowing at Kilometer 8 on that July 11th!.) My "scribbly" notes were still useable to me, and so long as your notes are decipherable later, you need not be Mr. Clean either. ContentI have provided some suggestions for what you should watch for and take notes about, but please do not simply parrot my precise words or limit yourself to the concepts that I describe below on the "watch for" list--it is very likely (and quite valuable) when students record additional observations in their own words. However, certain content characteristics warrant your attention. These should include:
What the field book should NOT be is a "Dear Diary" record of gossip and complaints. Unless necessary to reconstruct matters pertaining to your project objective, itemization of "who said what about whom" is frivolous and inappropriate. You SHOULD, however, record the name(s), organizational affiliations, and contact information of other persons who have provided or obtained information (photos, books, etc.) that you may later want to examine. Minimum Format
Inclusions
References
This will be on the Friday, 26SEP03 field skills test. You of course are welcome to show your notes and seek consultation from the instructor and your peers during the project. Keep very careful track of your notebook's location, but should it turn up missing inform the instructor IMMEDIATELY--I will attempt to assist you. 358 Field SkillsCollectively you will obtain data for mapping habitat parameters of Rhamnus [buckthorn] along trails in Schmeeckle Reserve. Buckthorn arrived in Schmeeckle about fifteen years ago, and has been spreading ever since despite much control effort. Very costly effort... Over the past years 358 students have mapped the overall distribution and age of buckthorn within the Reserve study area, and an intriguing question emerged from their work: where might we eradicate this invasive plant? To determine this was beyond their capability, because they did not have sufficient deterrent habitat data. So guess what your continuation of their work shall be this year! [BACK] You should examine the 2003 report as background for your own work. Be sure to examine the maps and tables in addition to reading the methods and interpretations. In lab I shall provide you with access to the age distribution data and maps.
Be aware that we are NOT going to actually attempt to eradicate anything in this project. That by definition requires destructive procedures, and the study area IS a nature preserve. This raises a serious research ethics issue: before making any sort of modification (including destructive testing), it is necessary to undergo an Environmental Subjects Review to ensure compliance with ethics protocols. Such a review, however, necessarily requires a detailed research proposal. Therefore, our overall objective this semester is to devise and propose an eradication scheme on the basis of preliminary field investigations. You will use unobtrusive measures only! One of the problems with mapping buckthorn habitat is that it reproduces in several ways, but of particular concern is that it does so vegetatively from underground roots. This poses a problem for mapping, because each aboveground stem probably does NOT represent a single plant. We also cannot dig up the plants in the Reserve to determine which stems belong to any single plant.
To map buckthorn habitat, we must use the existing maps and data of these multiple-stem plants, and their age, and then obtain a usable sample of the relevant habitat parameters. Each team will sample along a 20 meter transect to either side of a fixed trail position, or "site". To either side of the transect you have 200 one meter square quadrats (a total of 400 for each transect), as follows (these fit into the top 2/3 of the fieldbook grid).
Do note that word "sample". It is rare to attempt an inventory of all individuals (a "population"), but statistical techniques enable reliable and representative samples of such populations. Each of you must acquire and analyze samples from 20 random quadrats at each of three sites, and take notes about habitat variables within these sampling quadrats. Previous 358 student research suggests that buckthorn does not thrive well in the presence of three habitat conditions; 1) deep leaf litter, 2) excessively wet soil, and 3) aggressive native competitors. The habitat variables we shall measure and map therefore will be:
At each quadrat examination (each student shall have different quadrats) record the following in your fieldbook:
This will be on the Friday, 26SEP03 field skills test. Use a separate fieldbook page for your detailed observations at each 1x1 meter quadrat. Be sure to indicate the exact location, azimuth, inclination, make, model, and serial number or other identifier of any instruments that you use. Record your observations with extreme care. I expect to provide your results to the managers of Schmeeckle Reserve, run these observations annually to develop a long-term database, and [for some of you] these data could become a foundation for further projects. For all of you, the project report that you jointly produce could become a worthy exhibit at job interviews. GPS MarksIn order to accurately locate your transects on topographic maps, and to enable returning to the exact sampling site by either yourself or future researchers, you must mark the location of your transect origin. You will do this, after receiving instructions during class, using a Magellan 315 GPS receiver. When using the Magellan 315 be sure to operate it while in motion for a few minutes before taking a mark (failure to do so will probably result in inaccurate coordinates). After taking the mark for the origin, be sure to do the following:
After all teams have saved their origin marks in the receiver, we will download them into a mapping program in class. We also have distance finder devices to verify tape measurements. This will be on the Wednesday, 25SEP01 field skills test.
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