Biology 334: Fall 2009

ADVICE ON WRITING A SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH PROPOSAL

A major component of the laboratory will be your designing, carrying out, and presenting the results of your own independent study project. This independent research project will give you the opportunity to pick an aspect of animal behavior that is especially interesting to you, and to research it thoroughly so that you have a thorough understanding of the topic. Each group of approximately four students will pick an aspect of animal behavior of interest to them, and will design an experiment to test a particular hypothesis regarding that behavior.

You are free to choose your own topic but it must be something that you can test in a four week period with the resources that we have available. If you need suggestions, please speak with me- the sooner you start thinking of ideas the better. Independent projects require that you are very organized and think through things thoroughly before you get started. Independent project ideas must be discussed with me, and approved by me ahead of time. I will meet with each group of students several times prior to the beginning of the projects to help you with ideas and experimental design. After each group begins collecting the data and I will meet with each group to discuss appropriate ways to analyze and present the data.

At the end of the term, each group will present their results in lab (orally) and hand in a written report for their independent project.

Each student should start an “idea notebook” right away (i.e. a notebook in which you jot down possible questions of interest to you which could potentially lead to research projects).

Each group must hand in a formal type-written (double spaced) research proposal for their project. This research proposal should include:

1) A title for your project

2) An introduction section providing:

a) Introductory material on your topic (you will need to research the literature and present background theory from the scientific literature).

b) Your hypotheses and predictions. What hypotheses do you plan to test? Depending on your question, you may have one hypothesis that you will test or you may have several hypotheses.

3) A methods section outlining the methods you will use. This should be very detailed and written as it would be in a scientific lab report. You should also include a paragraph or two carefully explaining: what data you will collect and how you will statistically analyze the data.

4) A complete list of items needed (this will help me know what we need to purchase).

5) A detailed time schedule. Look at the syllabus and see how much time you have. Then plan out a week-by-week schedule of exactly what you will do.

For example (for a fish foraging experiment):

Week 1 (date): Set up aquaria, introduce fish into tanks, allow fish to acclimate for one week, collect prey to be used, design data collection sheets.

Week 2 (date): Experiment 1: Provide each fish with prey assemblage. Fish will see the same prey assemblage each day, for seven days in a row. At the end of each day tanks will be cleaned. Data on the number and type of each prey captured will be collected. Etc........

Week 2 (date): Etc....

6) A literature cited section.

Suggested sources for finding topics and information for your projects

Books:

You may need to refer to books for some background information so that you will be able to understand the terminology in the journal articles.

Alcock, Animal Behavior

Krebs and Davies, An Introduction to Behavioral Ecology, and Behavioral Ecology and Evolutionary approach

Search the library catalog for other animal behavior and behavioral ecology books. Also search for books providing background information on the system/species you are covering (for example if you are doing a fish foraging topic you may need to refer to a fish biology book to get background information on fish so that you can understand the terminology in the literature).

Journals:

Animal Behavior
Behavior
Behavioral Ecology
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
Ethology and Sociobiology
Ethology
American Naturalist
Ecology
Oikos
Oecologia
Evolution

Birds: Auk, Condor, Ibis, Wilson Bulletin

Mammals: J. Mammalogy, Mammalia

Herps: Herpetologiaca, J. Herpetology

Fish: Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Environmental Biology of Fishes

Insects: Insectes Sociaux, J. Insect Physiology