Ecosystem Productivity and Resource Acquisition
In this activity, designed by Dr. Matthew Wund, The College of New Jersey, students were required to devise and test hypotheses about the relationship between ecosystem productivity and traits associated with resource acquisition. Students commonly compared taxa that inhabit both highly productive biomes (e.g., rainforests) and much less productive biomes (e.g., deserts). The goal was to determine if characteristics such as home range size, diet, or body size differed depending upon the resource availability in an organism’s environment. Once the students designed and executed their query, they were responsible for graphically and/or statistically analyzing their results, and presenting their findings to the class in a short powerpoint presentation.
