OCELOTS

Online Content for Experiential Learning of Tropical Systems

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    Fish, forests, and phosphorus: How do tropical fish, rainforest canopies, and volcanic groundwater inputs affect stream phosphorus cycling?
    Rainforest stream nutrient concentrations vary with groundwater source, and different stream fish species feed on aquatic and/or terrestrial prey. Explore how phosphorus cycling changes with stream...

    Keywords: nutrient cyclesBiogeochemistrykeystone speciesfood webFunctional Diversity

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    Biting into "Science Cookies": Are seed fates determined by seed size or chemistry?
    By understanding how animals make seed dispersal decisions, we can predict how plant traits affect seed survival and plant recruitment. Using wild agoutis, we experimentally tested how seed...

    Keywords: predationplant animal interactionsSymbiosisTrophic interactionsTropical ecosystemsArtificial seedsSeed dispersalTerrestrial mammal

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    Spreading seeds: How can a better understanding of seed dispersal improve tropical forest restoration?
    Learn about seed dispersal by animals and how this ecological process can be harnessed to facilitate forest recovery through a forest restoration experiment in Costa Rica. Apply what you learn to a...

    Keywords: conservationRestorationtropical forestsbiodiversity lossSeed dispersal

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    Implementing an online module about plant functional traits in the context of restoration ecology for an undergraduate class in Brazil.
    This resource describes my experience in implementing this OCELOTS module in a Functional Trait-based Restoration class for undergraduate majors in the Forest Sciences Department / Escola Superior...

    Keywords: tropical forestsbiodiversity structureAtlantic forestfunctional traitshybrid ecosystems

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    Cold blood and wet skin in hot and dry secondary forests. How do amphibian traits determine persistence in secondary forests?
    Students will synthesize information from biological and physiological traits of amphibians and characteristics of secondary forests in the tropics to form hypotheses about persistence of...

    Keywords: life historyconservation biologyphysiological ecologyamphibianland use changeEctothermsecondary foresttrait-based ecology

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    Colorful wings send messages: Why are butterfly wings colorful?
    Red postman butterflies live in tropical rainforests and have a mix of red, yellow, and black on their wings. These bright colors may warn predators or attract mates. Explore whether color alone or...

    Keywords: Quantitative reasoningadaptationpredationfield workEvolution by natural selection and mutation

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    Causes and consequences of resisting herbivory: How long-lived plants avoid damage from diverse short-lived insect herbivores
    This module guides students through decades-long studies of tropical plant-insect interactions to elucidate the ecology and evolution of plant defenses while encouraging students to consider the...
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    Restoring tropical forests: Is planting clusters of trees a cost-effective and ecologically-sound strategy to restore tropical forest?
    This module (available in four languages) provides a broad introduction to both ecological and social aspects of tropical forest restoration. It focuses on a long-term study comparing three...

    Keywords: Restoration Ecologyforest restorationtropical forest

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    Healing the scars: Tropical rainforest carbon cycling. Does it matter which tree species you plant?
    This online module explores how differences in traits of tropical tree species translate into differential effects on the carbon cycle, integrating ecological information across scales and the...

    Keywords: climate changecarbon cyclingtropical biology4DEE Frameworkforest restorationtropical tree speciessoil carbon

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    Wildlife Crossings in Costa Rica: Are wildlife crossing structures effective in mitigating roadkill mortality on tropical highways?
    Meet Jack Ewing, an ecotourism pioneer in Costa Rica who fought to safeguard wildlife from roadkill mortality caused by enlargement of a major highway. This module presents the topic of road...

    Keywords: Biodiversityconservation biologyland use changeRoad Ecologyecosystem managementfragmentation

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    Vegetation Greening: A Snapshot from the Andean Tropics
    This online module explores how satellite images are used to study vegetation greenness and, using Ecuador as an example, demonstrates how tropical vegetation experienced increased greenness...

    Keywords: remote sensingTime Series AnalysisEarth ObservationEarth and Space SciencesgeographyGIMMS NDVIgreening and browningtropical Andes

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    Plant-microbial mutualisms in canopy gap recovery: How do soil microbial symbionts help tropical forests recover from treefall gaps?
    This module uses tropical plant-soil microbial interactions in canopy gaps as a lens to better understand species interactions and disturbance ecology, while showing how scientists study these...

    Keywords: forest ecologyPlant Ecologynutrient cyclingmicrobestropical forestsDisturbances

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    High technology to measure forest carbon stocks: How can advanced remote sensing improve biomass quantification in the Brazilian Amazon?
    A case study on the estimation of aboveground biomass using advanced remote sensors (LiDAR and hyperspectral) in the Brazilian Amazon. Students explore remote sensing (RS) data and compare RS-based...

    Keywords: climate changeremote sensinghyperspectraltropical forestsLiDAR data analysiscarbon stocks

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    Restoring Tropical Forests: Implementing a module in an undergraduate majors’ course in forest ecology in Costa Rica
    This publication describes implementation of a module on tropical forest restoration in Costa Rica for an upper-level undergraduate course in forest ecology at the Instituto Tecnológico de Costa...

    Keywords: forest ecologyRestorationfield course

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    Healing the scars: A tropical rainforest carbon cycling module implemented in a Forest Ecology course
    This publication describes my implementation of this module on tropical rainforest carbon cycling in an undergraduate forest ecology course for majors in the Department of Silviculture and Forest...

    Keywords: carbon cyclingnutrient cyclingenergy flowecosystem productivity

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