General Unit Information

Many ecologists work in consultancies, government agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that deal with either generating or interpreting ecological data. Both data generation and interpretation require that graduates understand best practice approaches for sampling, monitoring and simple experimentation. In this unit you will encounter the hands-on practicalities of designing and carrying out robust sampling or experimental approaches in field ecology. You will learn about scales of replication, the issues around randomisation, effective controls, stratified sampling and maximising the inferential power of sampling regimes or experiments despite logistic constraints. This unit focuses on these issues directly, integrating fieldwork, data collection and analysis. You will develop your employability skills as you undertake a range of data collection approaches for working in various habitats and systems (e.g. plankton sampling in freshwater systems, insect sampling, vegetation surveys).

Pre-semester field work: In July (O-week), you will work for one week on an intensive field trip based at the Jock Marshall reserve, which is situated on Monash’s Clayton campus. You will rotate through a series of projects or vignettes covering various habitats, sampling techniques and organisms.

Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you should be able to:

1. Evaluate how uncertainty and variation in ecological systems require rigorous designs in order to make robust biological inferences;
2. Apply different experimental and sampling designs to explore signal to noise ratios in biological data;
3. Optimise experimental and sampling approaches in real world settings;
4. Create fit-for-purpose experimental design approaches for collecting biological data based on varying resources;
5. Communicate the findings from ecological sampling studies in a robust but accessible way.

Specific Unit Information