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Title

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1Data Management using National Ecological Observatory Network's (NEON) Small Mammal Data with Accompanying Lesson on Mark Recapture Analysis 1Data Management Adaptation: Correlating Forest Community Dynamics to Climate

Authors

Old VersionNew Version
1Jim McNeil (George Mason University; Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation) 1Sarah McCarthy-Neumann (Alma College)
2Megan A. Jones (National Ecological Observatory Network) 2Sarah Neumann ()
3Megan A. Jones (National Ecological Observatory Network)   

Description

Old VersionNew Version
1<p>This version of this teaching module was published in Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology:&nbsp;</p>  1<p>This lesson is an adaptation based on two other teaching modules:</p>
   2
   3<p>Hern&aacute;ndez-Pacheco, R. (2018).&nbsp;<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.25334/Q44X4D" target="_blank">More In Depth Spreadsheet Management Adaptation of Data Management using NEON Small Mammal Data</a>.&nbsp;<a href="https://qubeshub.org/groups/neon2018">NEON Faculty Mentoring Network</a>, QUBES Educational Resources.&nbsp;<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.25334/Q44X4D" target="_blank">doi:10.25334/Q44X4D</a></p>
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3<p>Jim McNeil and Megan A. Jones. April 2018, posting date. Data Management using National Ecological Observatory Network&rsquo;s (NEON) Small Mammal Data with Accompanying Lesson on Mark Recapture Analysis.&nbsp;<cite>Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology</cite>, Vol. 13: Practice #9 [online].&nbsp;<a href="http://tiee.esa.org/vol/v13/issues/data_sets/mcneil/abstract.html">http://tiee.esa.org/vol/v13/issues/data_sets/mcneil/abstract.html</a></p>  5<p>Jim McNeil and Megan A. Jones. April 2018, posting date. Data Management using National Ecological Observatory Network&rsquo;s (NEON) Small Mammal Data with Accompanying Lesson on Mark Recapture Analysis.&nbsp;<cite>Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology</cite>, Vol. 13: Practice #9 [online].&nbsp;<a href="http://tiee.esa.org/vol/v13/issues/data_sets/mcneil/abstract.html">http://tiee.esa.org/vol/v13/issues/data_sets/mcneil/abstract.html</a></p>  
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5<p>*** *** ***&nbsp;</p>  7<p>*** *** ***&nbsp;</p>  
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7<p>Undergraduate STEM students are graduating into professions that require them to manage and work with data at many points of a data management life cycle. Within ecology, students are presented not only with many opportunities to collect data themselves, but increasingly to access and use public data collected by others. This activity introduces the basic concept of data management from the field through to data analysis. The accompanying presentation materials mention the importance of considering long-term data storage and data analysis using public data.</p>  7<p>Building research questions and carrying out appropriate analysis to answer them is often the ultimate semester activity within introductory ecology courses. These research experiences present multiple challenges concerning 1) how to generate data and 2) how to manage the data for analysis. This adaptation uses NEON vegetation structure data in place of NEON small mammal data in the teaching module &#39;<em>More in Depth Spreadsheet Management Adaptation of Data Management Using NEON Small Mammal Data&#39; </em>(Raisa Hern&aacute;ndez-Pacheco 2018) to address the second challenge.</p>
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9<p>This data set is a subset of small mammal trapping data from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). The accompanying lesson introduces students to proper data management practices including how data moves from collection to analysis. Students perform basic spreadsheet tasks to complete a Lincoln-Peterson mark-recapture calculation to estimate population size for a species of small mammal. Pairs of students will work on different sections of the datasets allowing for comparison between seasons or, if instructors download additional data, between sites and years. Data from six months at NEON&rsquo;s Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) field site are included in the materials download. Data from other years or locations can be downloaded directly from the NEON data portal to tailor the activity to a specific location or ecological topic.</p>  9<p>This activity is designed to be carried out in a 1.25 hr lecture style course, however, students will need access to computers during this activity. Although the activity can be easily extended, its adaptation to the original was intended for instructors with high need to teach data management skills in a short period of time.</p>
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11<p>In this activity, students will:</p>  13<p><strong>Specific module adaptations</strong></p>
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   15<p>NEON terrestrial forest vegetation data replaced NEON small mammal data in order to broaden the use of the teaching module in plant oriented courses. Specifically, this adaptation consists of four exercises that introduce students to 1) format spreadsheet data tables, 2) carry out spreadsheet quality control, 3) count/sort/filter data of interest in order to conduct a pilot analysis on NEON forest aboveground biomass, and 4) correlate vegetation biomass across nine forest sites to a climate metric (e.g., latitude, mean annual temperature, or mean annual precipitation).</p>
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   17<p>In this adapted activity, students will learn how to:</p>
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13<ul>  19<ul>  
14   <li>discuss data management practices with the faculty. Presentation slides are provided to guide this discussion.</li>  14   <li>format spreadsheets for effective data use.</li>
15   <li>view field collection data sheets to understand how organized data sheets can be constructed.</li>  15   <li>carry out spreadsheet quality assurance and control.</li>
16   <li>design a spreadsheet data table for transcription of field collected data using good data management practices.</li>  16   <li>conduct a pilot analysis by managing a large, open access dataset to answer a research question.</li>
17   <li>view NEON small mammal trapping data to a) see a standardized spreadsheet data table and b) see what data are collected during NEON small mammal trapping.</li>  17   <li>create a scatter plot figure correlating tree aboveground biomass to a climate metric across nine sites.</li>
18   <li>use Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets to conduct a simple Lincoln-Peterson Mark-Recapture analysis to estimate plot level species population abundance.</li>    
19</ul>  24</ul>  
20    
21<p>Please note that this lesson was developed while the NEON project was still in construction. There may be future changes to the format of collected and downloaded data. If using data directly from the NEON Data Portal instead of using the data sets accompanying this lesson, we recommend testing out the data each year prior to implementing this lesson in the classroom.</p>    
22    
23<p>This module was originally taught starting with a field component where students accompanied NEON technicians during the small mammal trapping. As this is not a possibility for most courses, the initial part of the lesson has been modified to include optional videos that instructors can use to show how small mammal trapping is conducted. Instructors are also encouraged to bring small mammal traps and small mammal specimens into the classroom where available.</p>    
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25<p><strong>The Data Sets</strong></p>  26<p><strong>The Data Sets</strong></p>  
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… … 
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29<p>The following datasets are posted for educational purposes only. Data for research purposes should be obtained directly from the National Ecological Observatory Network (www.neonscience.org).</p>  30<p>The following datasets are posted for educational purposes only. Data for research purposes should be obtained directly from the National Ecological Observatory Network (www.neonscience.org).</p>  
30  31  
31<p>Data Citation: National Ecological Observatory Network. 2017. Data Product: NEON.DP1.10072.001. Provisional data downloaded from <a href="http://data.neonscience.org/">http://data.neonscience.org</a>. Battelle, Boulder, CO, USA</p> 32<ul>
   33   <li><strong>NEON_TreeVegetation_variables.xlsx</strong> &ndash; Metadata file for NEON terrestrial vegetation data describing the variable names.</li>
   34   <li><strong>NEON.Adaptation_FacultyNotes_DataManagementWithNEONTreeData.docx</strong> &ndash; This document provides instructor information on the workshop activity.</li>
   35   <li><strong>NEON.Adaptation_DataManagementWithNEONTreeData_Slides.pptx</strong> &ndash;&nbsp; This presentation accompanies the workshop activity and provides visuals to support the steps of the activity.</li>
   36   <li><strong>NEON_tree_data_student.xlsx</strong> &ndash;This workbook contains NEON terrestrial vegetation data consisting of both species identity and size (e.g., diameter at breast height) for all individuals at all NEON terrestrial sites.</li>
   37   <li><strong>NEON_plot_area.xlsx</strong> - This workbook contains the area sampled at each of the sites which is needed to standardize the aboveground biomass data to cm per hectare.</li>
   38   <li><strong>NEON_site_climate.xlsx</strong> - This workbook contains latitude, mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation at each site.</li>
   39   <li><strong>NEON_tree_data_instructor.xlsx</strong> &ndash;This workbook contains NEON terrestrial vegetation data consisting of both species identity and size (e.g., diameter at breast height) already filtered by individuals and sites (according to the activity instructions) with pivot table result summaries and scatter plot figures.</li>
   40</ul>

Attachments

1 file — ./Small Mammal Data Teaching Module/McNeilJones_TIEE_DataManagementSlides.pptx 1 file — ./Neumann/NEON.Adaptation_DataManagementWithNEONTreeData_Slides.pptx
2 file — ./Small Mammal Data Teaching Module/McNeilJones_TIEE_NEONSmallMammalDataAbundanceWorkbook.xlsx 2 file — ./Neumann/NEON.Adaptation_FacultyNotes_DataManagementWithNEONTreeData.docx
3 file — ./Small Mammal Data Teaching Module/NEONTeachingModule_SmallMammalDataManagement_TeachingDataSubset.zip 3 file — ./Neumann/NEON_plot_area.xlsx
4 file — ./Small Mammal Data Teaching Module/NEONTeachingModule_Student_DataManagementwWithNEONSmallMammalDataAndMarkRecapture.docx 4 file — ./Neumann/NEON_site_climate.xlsx
5 file — ./Small Mammal Data Teaching Module/NEONTeachingModule_Teacher_DataManagementwWithNEONSmallMammalDataAndMarkRecapture.docx 5 file — ./Neumann/NEON_tree_data_instructor.xlsx
6 file — ./Small Mammal Data Teaching Module/NEON_Fieldtech7.jpg 6 file — ./Neumann/NEON_tree_data_student.xlsx
7 file — ./Neumann/NEON_TreeVegetation_variables.xlsx
8 file — ./Neumann/NEONTreeVegetation.jpg
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