Group poster Spring 2017 Invertebrate Biology
Your group should design and create a poster showing the organisms that you were able to identify in lab this semester.
A first draft of your poster file is due to me by 8AM Thursday, April 20th. I will return these to you in lab that afternoon, with my comments.
Your final poster file is due to me on or before 9AM on Monday, April 24th. Text from that file will be uploaded to Turnitin, so please make sure that your poster is entirely in your own words. I will print them that morning, and your group should designate someone to pick your group’s poster up from the main office on the afternoon of Monday, April 24th. You entire group must be beside your poster to answer questions at the departmental poster session that same afternoon (see syllabus).
Your poster should be formatted as 48” wide and 36” tall. Use the point sizes and other suggestions in the Biology 300 poster handout if you’ve not done a poster lately; if you need a copy of this handout, please ask me for one.
Title: Descriptive (eg: “Freshwater Oligochates from College Lake, Rock Hill, SC”)
Introduction: Literature background for your group. Sticking with the above example-- which species of freshwater oligochaetes have been reported from SC ponds and lakes? For most of you, you’ll need to broaden your geographical coverage, as the answer to the above question is likely to be “none” for most taxa. Look for reviews of freshwater invertebrates from the Carolinas, the American Southeast, or even the east coast of the United States.
Materials and Methods: This describes your collecting site(s) and methods, and any methods you used to preserve, identify, and study your specimens. This is the appropriate place to cite the key(s) that you used.
Results: These are illustrations, taxonomic names, tracking of the key that you used, and a brief description of the habitat sampled. Please classify your organisms to the lowest taxonomic level that can be supported by your illustrations. Although “to species” is the ideal goal, for many of your specimens, Order, Family, or Genus may be as far as you can go. For any species that you successfully sequenced, what was the top blast hit on Genbank? Does this allow you to check the identification that you made from the key(s)?
Discussion: Are the species the ones that you expected to find, based on the literature? Are there commonly-reported species that you didn’t find? Are any of your species new records for South Carolina, for York County? How do your discoveries relate the previous semesters? Remember to cite the literature and any other student projects that you reference.
Acknowledgements: Thank the people that helped you.
Literature Cited: Cite the references that you used, in the appropriate format (the department’s official style is CSE name-year format; google “CSE style” if you didn’t keep your copy of McMillan, Writing papers in the biological sciences.)
Note: I may use photos and other information from your poster may (with attribution crediting you by name) to construct a guide to the invertebrate fauna of Winthrop lake, wetlands, woods, and successional plots.