The purpose of this Marine Ecology Project assignment is for you to research the ecology of marine ecosystems and write a report describing environmental and biological factors that affect kelp forests.
Specific factors that you may want to discuss are:
1. temperature, light levels, dissolved nutrients — how do these impact, structure or limit these systems
2. species interactions — herbivores and carnivores, predators and prey, host and symbiont
3. invasive species, competitive interactions between key ecosystem players
4. dominant primary producers and factors affecting the distribution of animal groups
5. disease, population crashes/proliferation
6. human and environmental disturbances — this includes local impacts and those happening at global scales (like climate change)
Minimum guidelines:
1. 5 complete pages double spaced NOT including the reference page
2. Times New Roman font (12 pt)
3. Focused and well crafted paragraphs
4. Provide a reference page (cite minimum of 5 references)
5. References must be cited in the text following scientific journal formatting
6. A clear and concise title
7. Never quote! Paraphrase the literature in your own words and provide a citation
References
you must include at least 3 primary literature citation, and 2 or more secondary literature citations to receive full credit for the references.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON REFERENCES
Good, reliable references do not come from blogs or general websites. These sources are “popular media” and are not scientific. If you cite a news site, such as Nature News (news from the journal Nature) this is a secondary source and it is reliable since you are getting information that is summarizing a peer-reviewed work. Your book is an example of secondary literature. If you cite a journal article, this is the best reference type and is called “primary literature.” These are peer reviewed papers written by scientists and are published in academic journals. You can find some of these academic journal articles online for free (search through google scholar), others cost $$$. Good example of open access journals are: “PLOS ONE (Links to an external site.)” and “Peer J” (Links to an external site.).
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