fyos disease ecology pre-meeting exercise complete before
TRANSCRIPT
FYOS Disease Ecology Pre-meeting Exercise – Complete before November 8, 2021
1 ***If you have a laptop, please bring it to class on November 8***
This week we will explore the concept of island biogeography and its implications for disease ecology. We will use an island biogeography simulation to gain a better understanding of this concept. This pre-meeting exercise will: 1) provide a basic background for understanding island biogeography, and 2) familiarize you with the simulation interface. There are four parts to this assignment and any part is fair game for your quiz. Part I: Watch the 5 minute video “Island Apocalypse” https://www.pbs.org/video/eo-wilson-ants-and-men-island-apocalypse Part II: Background Reading
1. Go to http://virtualbiologylab.org/ModelsHTML5/IslandBiogeography/IslandBiogeography.html 2. Click on the “Background Information” link
3. Read the sections “Island Biodiversity”, “Island Biogeography”, “Productivity and Biodiversity”, and “Colonization of Islands”. Be sure to use the arrow in the lower left corner to turn the page.
4. After reading all sections navigate back to the home screen by clicking the “Home” icon in the upper left corner of the page.
Part III: Tutorial
1. Click on the “Tutorial” link on the home screen.
2. Follow along with the tutorial for operating the experiment interface through step 8 (“Final
Instructions”) and stop before clicking “Next”.
FYOS Disease Ecology Pre-meeting Exercise – Complete before November 8, 2021
2 ***If you have a laptop, please bring it to class on November 8***
Part IV: Experiment Interface 1. You will now begin a simple simulation to familiarize yourself with the controls that are part of the
experimental interface. Click “Next” to go to the experiments.
2. You will see a screen like this:
The default habitat is tropical and the default taxon is arthropod. You do not need to change these yet. We will need to change the island size and island distance so we have two islands that are of medium size and are moderately far from the shore of the mainland. Therefore, you will change the island distance for both islands to 190 Km and the island diameter for both islands to 160 Km using the arrows above. Do not change migration rate or mortality. These settings will remain the same throughout all of the experiments.
3. Click on the “To Data” arrow to get this screen:
FYOS Disease Ecology Pre-meeting Exercise – Complete before November 8, 2021
3 ***If you have a laptop, please bring it to class on November 8***
4. Then, click on the “play” button and let the simulation run for 300 years. Hit pause at year 300. If you miss and are a year or two over or under it is ok but you want to be as close to 300 as possible.
5. Once you have paused the simulation, make note of the current number of species (number living there right now) for each island. These numbers are located on the data collection sheet:
Record the current number of species for each island in the table in step 7.
6. After recording the number of species click the “To Design” arrow to get to this screen:
Click “Clear Islands” to start a new experiment and select the taxon birds. You will not change any other settings. Repeat steps 3-5 for birds, then reptiles and mammals. Don’t forget to click “Clear Islands” between experiments.
FYOS Disease Ecology Pre-meeting Exercise – Complete before November 8, 2021
4 ***If you have a laptop, please bring it to class on November 8***
7. Fill in the table below and calculate average number of species for each taxon in each habitat. Then, answer the questions below. These questions will help you on the quiz.
Tropical Habitat # of Species
Taxon Island 1 Island 2 Average
Example 8 6 (8+6)/2=7
Arthropods
Birds
Reptiles
Mammals
Questions:
1. Which taxon had the highest average number of species? Which taxon had the lowest average number of species?
2. Using the information from the video and background reading, explain why the average number of species in each habitat varied depending on taxon.
3. Of the taxa listed in the simulation (arthropods, birds, reptiles, mammals), which one did Wilson and MacArthur examine in their experiments on island biogeography? Why did they use this taxon? What was the advantage of using it compared to other taxa?