- 1 - TIEE Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology - Volume 13, March 2018 ISSUES : DATA SET Parasites – They’re what’s for dinner: Investigating the role of parasites in aquatic food webs Sarah A. Orlofske University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point;
[email protected] Field sampling for amphibians and aquatic invertebrates. (Photo courtesy of Clara Boland) THE ECOLOGICAL QUESTION: How does the presence of parasites influence characteristics of freshwater food webs? ECOLOGICAL CONTENT: Food web ecology, wetland communities, parasitism, disease ecology, complex life cycles, network modeling WHAT STUDENTS DO: Students will: TIEE, Volume 13 © 2018 – Sarah A. Orlofske and the Ecological Society of America. Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology (TIEE) is a project of the Committee on Diversity and Education of the Ecological Society of America (http://tiee.esa.org). - 2 - TIEE Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology - Volume 13, March 2018 evaluate the methodology for collecting and analyzing food web data investigate metadata provided with a well-resolved food web database including parasites explore parasite life cycles and interactions with other species in a food web context formulate research questions and propose hypotheses about how including parasites could influence properties of the entire food web as well as individual taxa. manipulate the food web data set to extract the relevant data, calculate food web metrics, and create figures that illustrate the results discuss their findings and relate it back to key ecological concepts. STUDENT-ACTIVE APPROACHES: Guided inquiry, open-ended inquiry, predict-observe-explain, small group discussion, computer- based projects, calculation SKILLS: ● Hypothesis formation: Generate questions and propose hypotheses about how the inclusion of infectious agents may affect properties of aquatic food webs and individual taxa in those communities.