OCELOTS

Description

Overview of Module: 

This module gives us an exciting overview of processes that influence carbon cycling globally. With the presentation of a long-term project in Costa Rica, authors show how plant traits such as aboveground and belowground biomass can differ by species, which results in differences in species contributions to the carbon cycle. Finally, this module demonstrates how planted forests are essential to reduce our carbon footprint and maintain animal biodiversity of tropical forests.

Summary of Implementation Plan and Teaching Notes:

Carbon cycling can be considered as a cross-cutting theme that connects ideas across disciplines. I was not teaching an Ecology course this semester, so instead, I implemented this OCELOTS module in the Systematic Botany course that I taught. I saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate to undergraduate students the importance of knowledge about plant diversity and evolution in supporting ecological studies. As a community ecologist, my background about species identity, traits and evolutionary history was an essential point to have a better understanding for teaching about diversity and ecosystem functioning. 

I started the module implementation by doing a lecture with an overview of the module, talking about land use changes in tropical forests and contextualizing it within our reality in the Caatinga forest. Later, I presented basic definitions of nutrient cycling, using the module as a research example of studies at the ecosystem level to evaluate carbon stocking in tropical forests and how different species contribute to carbon cycling. I presented the plant species used in the long-term project, and at that point we discussed their plant families, traits and evolutionary history. I then emphasized the importance of the course in Systematic Botany to support the studies of plant ecologists. After the lecture, we did one experiment in our university garden. As a class, we measured the diameter at breast height and plant height of some species (Fig. 1) to simulate the estimation of plant biomass and carbon by species. Students also tried to identify the species genera and families based on our previous classes. 

In a second class, I invited students to calculate their personal carbon footprint. After that, I presented to students some data on Caatinga plant species biomass and how they can convert biomass values in C and assimilated CO2 values to compare with their mean footprint. Later, I divided students in groups and gave them the assignment to produce cards about Caatinga species for which they had estimated C stocks. The cards also included taxonomic and ecological information. This activity culminated in time to coincide with celebrating Caatinga day on April 28. (see the cards in LaBGE Instagram page: @labge_upe).  

Support was provided by: A grant from the United States National Science Foundation (DBI-RCN-UBE 2120141).

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