Week 6, Chapter 13 -- Adopt-a-Species Course home | Weekly schedule | Announcements | Instructor Info | Desire2Learn | MasteringBiology® | Honor Code | FAQs | HELP!

Introduction

In this assignment, you will "adopt" an endangered or threatened species. Be sure to choose a species that interests you, because you will write about it periodically throughout this semester. This week, you will select your species and introduce it to the world by writing the script for a mini-"documentary." As you will see, the documentary should integrate some of the information you learned when you studied chapters 5 and 13.

Part 1 -- Important websites:

Visit the following websites that list endangered and threatened species in Oklahoma, the U.S., and worldwide:

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a list of federally listed threatened and endangered species in Oklahoma
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Program lists threatened and endangered plants in the U.S.
• The Red List, maintained by IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature) lists threatened species from around the world

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service site allows you to search by species' common or scientific name, by state, or by county in the "Find Endangered Species" box. Let's say you search for Lichen. Here are the results:

• They are listed first by scientific name, like Gymnoderma lineare. These scientific names may seem awkward to a non-biologist, but they are useful for at least two reasons.
  • A given organism may have multiple common names (think "pill bug" or "sowbug" or "roly poly"), and different species can have the same common name (as in "robin" or "blue jay"). But each species has only one scientific name. By using the scientific name, there is no question what organism is under discussion.
  • The first word in the scientific name (e.g. Gymnoderma) is the organism's genus, which tells scientists how the organism is related to other lichens. The second word (and sometimes subsequent words -- e.g. lineare) uniquely identifies the species. Two lichens in genus Gymnoderma are more closely related to each other than are lichens in different genera (e.g. Gymnoderma and Sulcaria).
• If you click on a scientific name, you get more information about that species. For example, when you click the link for Gymnoderma lineare, you find out more about its classification, can view a map of occurrence, and you may be able to find a list of links relevant to its status as an endangered species. These links vary from species to species, and some species have much more information than others.

The IUCN Red List site is searchable. Let's say you were interested in the Kanab Amber Snail. You could search for Oxyloma (its genus) by typing it into the search box at the top of the page. The site returns a screen like this:

If you click on the scientific name, you find information about its taxonomy and habitat, and some of the reasons the species is threatened.

You do not, however, have to know the scientific name of a species to use the Red List. You can also search for common names. The Red List will return a wealth of information on your species and/or related ones (note that some may NOT be threatened or endangered in the list).

Part 2 -- Tell the class which species you have adopted right away!

Using the sites described above, select a threatened or endangered species that you will "adopt" for the rest of the semester. (You will write about this species in several subsequent assignments). Before you commit to a species, it would be a good idea to do a quick web search to make sure there is a reasonable amount of information available on its range, life history, and ecology. You might also want to check out this semester's other Adopt-a-Species assignments in advance (Weeks 8, 12, and 15), so that you'll know the kinds of ideas for your species that you'll have to think of later on.

Although the vertebrates are tempting, and you can choose whatever threatened or endangered organism you like, please seriously consider choosing an invertebrate or plant! We could all stand to learn more about these less glamorous, but still vitally important, organisms. As an extra incentive, you can earn 2 extra credit points if you adopt a species that is NOT a vertebrate.

Everyone in the class must choose a different species. Therefore, while making your selection, go to this week's D2L discussion board, click on the forum/topic "Taken Species," look at everyone else's picks (because you can't have them!), then post a message there with your species. Make sure your subject line includes both of the following:

1. your species' common name; and
2. your species' scientific name

Yes, all in the subject line! If it doesn't all fit in the subject line, put as much as you can there, and put the full information in the body of your message. This will be the list of species that are taken and therefore unavailable to the rest of the class.

Part 3 -- Writing assignment:

Write the script for a brief documentary that introduces the world to your adopted species. Your documentary should integrate the following information (in any order):

• Scientific name (italicize it every time you use it with Genus uppercase and specific epithet lowercase) and common name
• A picture of your species. In your D2L post, try just copying, then pasting an image from the web; this works in some browsers. You may also be able to find the icon to insert in image in your post. If not, please make an active hyperlink to the image; in that case, test the hyperlink to make sure it opens in a new window and the picture actually shows up. Either way, you must explicitly cite the picture's source in a way that makes it clear that the citation is for the picture, not for the rest of the info in the documentary.
• What domain and kingdom does it belong to?
• What kind of organism is it?
  • If it is a vertebrate animal, is it a mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, or fish?
  • If it is an invertebrate animal, is it a clam, snail, insect, arachnid, crustacean, or other?
  • If it is a plant, is it a flowering plant, conifer/cycad, fern/fern ally, or other?
  • Is it a lichen?
• What sort of habitat does it live in (terrestrial, freshwater, marine)? Where does it live (continent, country, region, etc.)?
• How does it obtain its food (photosynthesis, eating other organisms, etc.)?
• What properties does it have that might make it useful to a bioprospector? [Note: If you don't know, you must speculate; you don't have to find evidence that bioprospectors actually use your species for this purpose.]
• Give a specific example of how this organism will be affected by global climate change. [Note: As before, you must speculate if you don't know. You don't have to find evidence that your organism will be affected by global climate change in the manner in which you suggest.]
• What is the status of your species (threatened, endangered, etc.), and what are its main threats to survival?

Please do not include random information about your species just because the information is out there. You are more than welcome to include other information about your species, of course, but make sure it's interesting and integrated into the flow of your documentary. You don't want your documentary to sound like someone is just reading an encyclopedia entry to you!

You can see a sample documentary here.

The information you need to complete this assignment might be on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website and/or the Red List website. If not, try doing a Google search on your species' scientific name, and you should get all the information you need. Remember, cutting and pasting from another website, without quotes or citation, is PLAGIARISM -- so is using a cut-and-pasted passage and just changing a few words. Plagiarism is a serious form of academic misconduct. If you have any questions about whether your work constitutes plagiarism, please visit the resources at week 1's plagiarism assignment, or ask your instructor.

For full credit, your documentary must meet the following criteria:

• length: 350-500 words, not including references.
• spell-check and proofread your work.
• a list of ALL references you used, correctly cited.

Part 4 -- Post your assignment to D2L:

Post your documentary to your personal D2L Discussions forum, and click the "Save" button.

Because you're posting all your Adopt-a-Species assignments to the same forum, please include the words "Week 6" in the title of your post for this assignment. No matter what, always save a back-up copy of your assignment somewhere on your computer! Although you will save/post directly in D2L, you don't want to run the risk that it won't be there when you come back to access it.

Part 5 -- Respond to at least two others:

Check out this page for more on the topic of good and bad responses. To help you do this, please answer the following questions:

• Have you ever heard of, seen, or encountered this organism, and what do you think of it?
• Do you think their proposed use of the species by a bioprospector is believable? Why or why not?
• Does it appear that the threats to this species survival should be able to be solved fairly easily? Why or why not?

After you have responded to two other students, complete the Gradebook Declaration for this week's Adopt-a-Species assignment in D2L Declarations. (Your Gradebook Declaration is subject to the Honor Code.) You will self-report your responses to other students' posts, but I will grade your entry myself, according to the rubric posted below.

Grading Rubric for Week 6, Chapter 13 Adopt-a-Species assignment:

I will use the following rubric to grade your Adopt-a-Species assignments. Notice that the rubric does not heavily reward creativity; I am much more interested in looking for evidence that you fulfill the assignment criteria.

Please note that points will be deducted as follows if you fail to meet the "mechanical" requirements of the assignment:

• 0.5 point will be subtracted for every 2 spelling/grammatical errors (for helpful hints, click here);
• 1 point will be subtracted if your post is too short.

Contemporary Issues in Biology -- BIOL 1003 Mariëlle H. Hoefnagels, Ph.D. © 2004-2015. biology1003 at OU dot edu (at = @, dot =.) Last Updated August 5, 2014 11:02 PM