Report Information

Coral Reef Diversity and Conservation 2014-15

J.D. Reimer

Assignment Information:

You must apply for research funding for the following research grant:

The MISE Coral Reef Biodiversity Fund

This fund provides grants for projects that investigate ways to protect coral reef associated animals. You must do research in Okinawa. You must use both traditional (field work, morphology) and modern (DNA, satellite tracking or imaging, etc.) techniques. Projects will be for two years from April 2015.

Your maximum budget is 5,000,000 yen.

Application: please submit the following to Science room 353 by 17:00 on Friday, February 6^th.

1. Research background and goals (1 page maximum): Provide a background that anyone with science training can understand, clearly state the project goal(s) and the animal(s) you will investigate, and explain the necessity of the project. You will get more marks for more/better references. You will get less marks if no references.

2. Methods (1 page maximum): Include detailed explanation of methods used, and a concrete timeline to be followed for two years. For field work, explain where you will go, and how you will collect samples, etc. For morphology, explain what data you will collect and why, etc. For DNA methods, please include details such as how many samples, what DNA markers you will use, etc. A realistic budget is needed.

3. Expected results (1 page maximum): Describe concretely what results can be expected, how these results will benefit coral reef science, and how these results will benefit future coral reef conservation research in Okinawa.

Hints:

Please remember these points:

i.      Your plan must be realistic, and must include as many details as possible to make it easy to understand. It can be as simple or large-scale as possible. The ideas must be logical. The plan can build on other plans, but these plans must be referenced.

ii.      Using scientific references increases the amount of knowledge you have access to. On the other hand, using information without references will decrease your score. Use Google Scholar or other sources of information to access scientific literature quickly. Space is limited, so choose references well.

iii.      Figures and graphs greatly help make ideas easy to understand. For budgets, catalogues may be useful. Please visit JDR’s lab to borrow any catalogue you need.

Marking:

Grades will be assigned based on:

1. originality (new ideas, etc.):                                           25 points

2. necessity:                                                               25 points

3. realistic possibility:                                                           25 points

4. background research:                                                      25 points

Other information:

l   This report and presentation is 40% of your final mark (final test is 40%, small tests are 20%).

l   Your report should be done alone, or with someone else. I expect twice as much information from a 2 person team (e.g. 6 pages)!

If you have any questions or problems please contact JDR as soon as you can, either at his office or by e-mail.