Instrumentation to Integrate Pattern and Process in Organismal Biology and Ecology

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Understanding connections between processes that occur at different levels of organization is one of the greatest challenges facing undergraduate students in biology. This project involves two mechanisms aimed at improving student understanding of such connections. First, the particular tools requested in this proposal, a portable photosynthesis system, a portable spectroradiometer, and a multi-channel metabolism system, will allow students in two of our large core biology courses to integrate patterns at the population or community scale with processes of energy production and use at the organismal scale. Second, students will develop hands-on skills while using the instruments in an open-ended fashion, first learning their operation while testing instructor-generated hypotheses, and then testing their own hypotheses to refine their understanding of the physiological bases of ecological patterns. Two proposed labs that specifically link organismal biology with ecology are "The Light Fantastic: Photosynthetic Characteristics of Forest Plants and Their Consequences for Spatial and Temporal Dynamics of Plant Communities" and "Energetic Strategies of Ectotherms and Endotherms, and Their Ecological Consequences". The instrumentation requested here will also be used to improve the quantitative and analytical sophistication of process skills and concepts taught in several additional courses for majors, and in an integrated science/mathematics general education course for non-majors.