BIO 270: ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
Professor: Don Dearborn, AI: Greg Anderson
Bio 270 is the last course in the core bio sequence, and focuses on basic ecology and evolution. The two main labs are the pine lab and the acid rain lab. Similar to the amylase lab in 242, students get the opportunity to revise the pine lab.
PINE LAB
Winter 2017
The Pine Lab examined two different sites with canopies consisting of predominantly Eastern white pine (Pinus strobus). One site had an open canopy, with few mature deciduous trees, and another site had a closed canopy, with many mature deciduous trees. We found that white pines in the closed canopy site had stunted and different growth patterns, compared to the trees in the open site.
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This report was the third formal biology lab report which I had written, and at this point I felt pretty comfortable with the style of writing as well as with the revision and peer review process. The most challenging aspect of writing this paper was moving from the very specific content of the cellular and molecular labs to a broader and more ecological approach in this class.