Assignment: Ecology and Evolution Questions

How to Read a Scientific Research Paper-‐-‐ a four-‐step guide for students Ann McNeal, School of Natural Science, Hampshire College, Amherst MA 010021 Reading research papers (“primary articles”) is partly a matter of experience and skill, and partly learning the specific vocabulary of a field. First of all, DON’T PANIC! If you approach it step by step, even an impossible-‐looking paper can be understood. 1. Skimming. Skim the paper quickly, noting basics like headings, figures and the like. This takes just a few minutes. You’re not trying to understand it yet, but just to get an overview. 2. Vocabulary. Go through the paper word by word and line by line, underlining or highlighting every word and phrase you don’t understand. Don’t worry if there are a lot of underlinings; you’re still not trying to make sense of the article. Now you have several things you might do with these vocabulary and concept questions, depending upon the kind of question each is. You can a. Look up simple words and phrases. Often the question is simply vocabulary-‐-‐what’s a lateral malleolus, or a christa, or the semilunar valve. A medical or biological dictionary is a good place to look for definitions.

A textbook of physiology or anatomy may be a good source, because it give more complete explanations. Your ordinary shelf dictionary is not a good source, because the definitions may not be precise enough or may not reflect the way in which scientists use a word (for example “efficiency” has a common definition, but the physical definition is much more restricted.) b. Get an understanding from the context in which it is used. Often words that are used to describe the procedures used in an experiment can be understood from the context, and may be very specific to the paper you are reading. Examples are the “lithium-‐free control group” in a rat experiment or the “carotene extraction procedure” in a biochemical experiment. Of course, you should be careful when deciding that you understand a word from its context, because it might not mean what you think. c. Flag this phrase as belonging to one of the major concepts of the paper-‐-‐it’s bigger than a vocabulary question. For example, a paper about diet and cancer might refer to “risk reduction,” which you would need to understand in context and in some depth. 3. Comprehension, section by section. Try to deal with all the words and phrases, although a few technical terms in the Methods section might remain. Now go back and read the whole paper, section by section, for comprehension. In the Introduction, note how the context is set. What larger question is this a part of? The author should summarize and comment on previous research, and you should distinguish between previous research and the actual current study. What is the hypothesis of the paper and the ways this will be tested? 1 Source:

http://hampshire.edu/~apmNS/design/RESOURCES/HOW_READ.html. Accessed January 16, 2011/ In the Methods, try to get a clear picture of what was done at each step. What was actually measured? It is a good idea to make an outline and/or sketch of the procedures and instruments. Keep notes of your questions; some of them may be simply technical, but others may point to more fundamental considerations that you will use for reflection and criticism below. In Results look carefully at the figures and tables, as they are the heart of most papers. A scientist will often read the figures and tables before deciding whether it is worthwhile to read the rest of the article! What does it mean to “understand” a figure? You understand a figure when you can redraw it and explain it in plain English words. The Discussion contains the conclusions that the author would like to draw from the data. In some papers, this section has a lot of interpretation and is very important. In any case, this is usually where the author reflects on the work and its meaning in relation to other findings and to the field in general. 4. Reflection and criticism. After you understand the article and can summarize it, then you can return to broader questions and draw your own conclusions. It is very useful to keep track of your questions as you go along, returning to see whether they have been answered. Often, the simple questions may contain the seeds of very deep thoughts about the work-‐-‐for example, “Why did the authors use a questionnaire at the end of the month to find out about premenstrual tension? Wouldn’t subjects forget or have trouble recalling?” Here are some questions that may be useful in analyzing various kinds of research papers: Introduction:

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• What is the overall purpose of the research? • How does the research fit into the context of its field? Is it, for example, attempting to settle a controversy? show the validity of a new technique? open up a new field of inquiry? • Do you agree with the author’s rationale for studying the question in this way? Methods: • Were the measurements appropriate for the questions the researcher was approaching? • Often, researchers need to use “indicators” because they cannot measure something directly-‐-‐for example, using babies’ birthweight to indicate nutritional status. Were the measures in this research clearly related to the variables in which the researchers (or you) were interested? • If human subjects were studied, do they fairly represent the populations under study? Results • What is the one major finding? • Were enough of the data presented so that you feel you can judge for yourself how the experiment turned out? • Did you see patterns or trends in the data that the author did not mention? Were there problems that were not addressed? Discussion • Do you agree with the conclusions drawn from the data? • Are these conclusions over-‐generalized or appropriately careful? • Are there other factors that could have influenced, or accounted for, the results? • What further experiments would you think of, to continue the research or to answer remaining questions? Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 42 (2019) 10–20 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Urban Forestry & Urban Greening journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ufug Present and future ecosystem services of trees in the Bronx, NY a,⁎ b Charity Nyelele , Charles N. Kroll , David J. Nowak T c a Graduate Program in Environmental Science, 321 Baker Lab, State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA Department of Environmental Resources Engineering, 424 Baker Lab, State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA c USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, 5 Moon Library, State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA b A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T Handling Editor: J Jun Yang Trees provide ecosystem services such as air pollutant removal, carbon storage and sequestration, urban heat island reduction, stormwater runoﬀ reduction as well as other socio-economic beneﬁts. Large-scale tree plantings are occurring in many cities to increase tree canopy coverage as well as the health, economic and environmental beneﬁts that come with trees.

Thus, there is a need to assess the extent to which trees provide these ecosystem services, where services are realized, and most importantly to improve methods of determining future planting locations. Using a new spatially distributed implementation of the i-Tree suite of ecosystem service models and mapping tools, we estimate the current and future ecosystem services and beneﬁts of a recent tree planting initiative within each census block group of the Bronx, NY for 2010 and for three 2030 tree cover scenarios (assuming no tree mortality, 4% and 8% annual mortality). Land cover and tree canopy estimates for 2010 are derived from a high-resolution land cover dataset. A grow-out scenario based on urban tree database information and allometric equations is used to predict future canopy cover. Change analysis is carried out at the census block group level to determine the magnitude and direction of change for each service and beneﬁt over time. The monetary value of trees in the Bronx in 2010 is estimated to be $37.6 million, and this value is estimated to range from $40.7 million to $43.9 million in 2030 if the current canopy is maintained and newly planted trees grow to maturity. Keywords: Allometric equations Beneﬁts Ecosystem services Grow-out i-Tree Urban forestry 1. Introduction Urbanization has adverse environmental impacts such as elevated temperatures, increases in air pollution and stormwater quantity, and decreases in stormwater quality, which pose major environmental and public health problems in cities (Seto and Shepherd, 2009). Studies show that increasing tree cover has the potential to provide multiple ecosystem services and beneﬁts including temperature reduction (Livesley et al., 2016; Salmond et al., 2016), air pollutant removal (Nowak, 2002; Nowak et al., 2014), carbon sequestration (Nowak and Crane, 2002; Nowak et al., 2013a), climate regulation (Salmond et al., 2016; Nowak and Crane, 2002) and stormwater improvements (Bolund and Hunhammar, 1999; Livesley et al., 2016). Ecosystem services refer to the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems sustain and fulﬁll human life (Daily, 1997), whilst beneﬁts illustrate the ﬁnal outputs from ecosystems that directly aﬀect human well-being (Haines-Young and Potschin, 2012). Ecosystem services, as the key functions that underpin the potential for well-being, are integral to ⁎ sustainable development (Wood et al., 2018) and need to be sustained in terms of both quality and quantity for future generations to meet their needs. The relative importance that people assign to beneﬁts provided by ecosystem services is typically represented in monetary units, ratings or ranking schemes (Schmidt et al., 2016). Many forest management strategies to improve services as well as the health, economic and environmental beneﬁts from trees are being undertaken in diﬀerent cities. Increasing the number of healthy trees through tree planting is one such strategy, as evidenced by large tree planting initiatives undertaken in New York City (NY), Chicago (IL) and Los Angeles (CA) (MillionTrees NYC, 2017; Chicago Region Trees Initiative, 2018; City Plants, 2018). However, there is uncertainty over the future ecosystem services and beneﬁts of these plantings. Studies that assess the extent to which these tree plantings provide various ecosystem services and also determine where these services are realized, have the potential to inform policy and decision making regarding urban forest management, particularly areas to target for future tree plantings to ensure environmental equity associated with both tree Corresponding author.

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Assignment: Ecology and Evolution Questions