About the assignment:

I set 3-4 deadlines across the semester for students to create a figure using BioRender software, which provides over 1,000 icons, figure templates, and free education subscriptions. For each BioRender assignment, students can choose from a topical or alternative prompt. The assignment is intended to give students low-stakes opportunities to practice (and receive feedback on) visual and written science communication.

Instructions:

Choose one of the topics below and create a figure that illustrates the relationship between the four concepts listed for that topic. You will earn one point for each of the 4 concepts, and a fifth point for writing a caption for your figure. The caption should be written for a general audience, in a narrative style. Save your figure as either a JPG, PNG, or PDF and submit it below.

**Be sure to either include the caption in the figure, or enter it as online text.**

Topical Prompts

Phenotypic plasticity

•     Genotype
•     Environmental conditions
•     Norm of reaction
•     Developmental plasticity or acclimation (pick one)
•     Caption

Unnatural selection (i.e., anthropogenic effects)

•     Directional selection
•     Phenotypic change(s)
•     Gene flow
•     Refuge
•     Caption

Evolutionary mismatch

•     Organism with a specific trait
•     Original environment / condition(s) that favored the evolution of that trait
•     Environmental changes
•     How has the trait become mismatched or maladaptive?
•     caption

Life history strategies

•     Body size
•     Growth rate
•     Number of offspring
•     Parental care
•     Caption

Populations

• patterns of distribution (i.e., random, uniform, clumped)
• dispersal (this can be interpreted in a number of different ways, i.e. active /
• passive, or emigration / immigration)
• gene flow
• population structure (i.e. age / life stage, sex)
• Caption

Metapopulations and Landscape Ecology

Choose a species of interest, and depict how that species would be affected by habitat fragmentation.

• matrix
• patch (i.e., suitable habitat)
• disruptive force (i.e., what causes fragmentation in the landscape you are portraying?)
• effective population size
• caption

Patterns of Biodiversity and Species Interactions

Create a map of the geographic distributions you might predict, for a new way to study biodiversity.

• map
• distribution of organisms, color-coded by trait of interest
• legend for color-coded traits
• specific examples of different traits found in different geographic regions
• Caption

Competition

Choose a species of interest, and depict how that species engages in and would be affected by competition.

• Intraspecific or interspecific (specify which one)
• Limiting resource(s)
• Physical adaptations
• Behavioral adaptations
• caption

Predation

• Functional response
• Numerical response
• Predator avoidance (a.k.a. defense responses in prey species)
• Effect on prey population
• Caption

Parasitism

• Host habitat (i.e., ecto- vs endo-parasite)
• Mode of transmission
• Life cycle
• Effects on host (i.e., physiological, behavioral, survival, and/or reproductive)
• caption

Mutualism

• Function that species A performs
• How that function benefits species B
• Function that species B performs
• How that function benefits species A
• caption
• Community Ecology
• Membership (i.e., which species are present)
• Physical structure (specify whether you mean the structure of a single community, or zonation across regions)
• Functional roles
• Dynamics (e.g., interactions between species or processes that occur over time)
• caption

Food Webs

• Trophic level
• Arrows (specify whether you are mapping energy flow or effects, i.e., predation pressure)
• Top-down or bottom-up effects (specify)
• Implications for ecosystem stability / function
• caption

Ecosystem Ecology

Illustrate the implications of one of the following scenarios (or propose your own): (a) eradication of mosquitoes; (b) removal of earthworms; (c) de-extinction of the Passenger Pigeon; (d) zombie apocalypse (assume that zombies only infect / kill humans)

• Interactions with other species
• Nutrient transfer via browser and/or detrital food chain
• Implications for community structure
• Implications for community functions and stability
• caption

Alternate Prompts

Open prompt

Create a BioRender to visually explain a concept you’re having trouble understanding. Clearly label each component in the figure, and underline the corresponding term or concept in your caption. Cite any sources you may have consulted while learning more about the topic.

• Concepts and relationships are represented intuitively in the figure. (1pt)
• Components are labeled in the figure. (1pt)
• Components are referenced, underlined in the figure caption. (1pt)
• The figure caption is clearly written. All terms and concepts are clearly defined, explained thoroughly, and effectively related to one another in the caption. (2pts)

Make a BioRender figure about a paper you’ve read

Make sure your caption and BioRender figure relate and explain 4 ecology concepts from the paper. Please underline the terms in your caption, to make it clear which concepts you are explaining. You might also consider labeling the illustration of each concept in your figure (A, B, C, D) and inserting corresponding letters in your caption.