Invertebrate Research Focus Boxes (RFBs)

Jan Pechenik's textbook Biology of the Invertebrates includes a series of 'Research Focus Boxes' (RFBs) scattered across chapters.  These RFBs highlight published research on particular taxonomic groups.  Each RFB distills the research question, methods, data, and conclusions relating to a single figure or table from a single published research article into a short (750-1000 word) summary and critical commentary.

In addition to using Pechenik's RFBs as class readings, for many years I have been assigning to students the challenge of writing their own RFBs.  Students can learn a great deal from this exercise--about how to read a scientific paper, about the process by which scientific questions are generated and answered, about details of experimental design and analysis, and about clear, explanatory prose.  The short format makes it possible for an instructor to provide a detailed evaluation of scientific accuracy and writing technique, even for a class of moderate size.

In 2011 I began to select some of the top entries in my classes and, with Jan's blessing, launched this webpage.  Several instructors, including Jan, now contribute regularly to the collection.  This forum gives some of our hardest-working students a chance to share their new-found knowledge with an audience well beyond the instructor.   If you are a course instructor interested in using this material as supplementary reading in your course, in creating a similar assignment for your class, or in submitting material for inclusion on this website, see the Information for course instructors, below.

-Bob Podolsky, College of Charleston

 


Student-generated RFBs

Porifera and Placozoa

Erica Levine: Defensive Strategies of Sponges (Ribiero et al. 2012) RDP

Cnidaria

Jake Oster: Sexual Plasticity and Self-Fertilization in a Clonal Sea Anemone (Schlesinger et al. 2010)RDP

Luke Rein: Using Statolith Composition to Determine Migration patterns in Box Jellies (Kingsford and Mooney 2012)RDP

Ctenophora

Daniel Schwab: Stealthy Predation by an Invasive Ctenophore, Mnemiopsis leidyi (Colin et al. 2010)JDA

Natalia Feschuk: Regenerating the Model of Regeneration with Ctenophores (Ramon-Mateu et al. 2019)KAJ

Platyhelminthes

Anna Matthews: Flatworm Orgies: Just a Day in the Life of Macrostomum lignano (Janicke and Scharer 2009)RDP

Rotifera

Frances Armstrong: Maintenance of Asexuality in Bdelloid Rotifers (Wilson and Sherman 2010)JDA

Nemertea

Mollusca

Briana Seapy: Gastropod embryos tolerate thermal stress...or not (Zippay and Hofmann 2010)JAP

Matt Snyder: Nudibranch Defense Using Stolen Hydroid Polyps (Martin and Walther 2002)JDA

Erin Spencer: Is it playtime yet? Observing behavior in Octopus vulgaris (Kuba et al. 2006)JDA

Stephanie Sammann: Impact of temperature & prey shell thickness on feeding of oyster drills (Lord and Whitlatch 2013)JAP

Abigail Tyrell: Effects of temperature and CO2 on bivalve larvae and juveniles (Talmage and Gobler 2011)JAP

Sarah Bradley: Effects of Ocean Acidification on Locomotion and Foraging in Molluscs (Leung et al. 2015)LAR

Rima Jurjus: Effects of Foraging Strategies on Metabolic Rates in Epipelagic Squids (Trueblood and Seibel 2014)LAR

Sydney Nichols: Use of Chitin for Protection by Nudibranchs (Rainer et al. 2007)KAJ

Molly Sharp: Extreme mechanical strength of the cuttlebone in Sepia officinalis (Yang et al. 2020)KAJ

Annelida

Arthropoda

Kara Gadeken: Phenotypic Plasticity in Mantis Shrimp Vision (Cheroske et al. 2006)JDA

Kelly Boisvert: Too Cold to Eat (Whitman et al. 2001)JAP

Caroline Donahue: Decline in arthropod abundance likely due to climate change (Bowden et al. 2018, Harris et al. 2019)RDP

Franklin Gaglione: PaV1 Avoidance in Panulirus argus (Anderson and Behringer 2013)LAR

Christian Keiper: Evaluating a Newly Associated Parasitoid of the Asian Long-horned Beetle (Aparicio et al. 2016)LAR

Zachary Schmidt: Handedness Demonstrated in Honeybee Route Choice (Ong et al. 2017)LAR

Tardigrada

Courtney Wickel: Cryptobiosis in Tardigrada (Jonsson and Rebecchi 2002)JDA

Salma Abdel-Raheem: Tardigrade Anhydrobiosis: Sleeping Beauty or Rip van Winkle? (Hengherr et al. 2008)JDA

Nematoda

Bryozoa

Brachiopoda

Echinodermata

Jessica Poppe: The perils of reduced pH on sea urchin development (Havenhand et al. 2008)JAP

Nancy Shrodes: Effects of elevated temperatures and elevated CO2 on seastar growth (Gooding et al. 2009)JAP

Sam Beshevkin: Effects of low salinity on echinoderm larval growth (George and Walker 2007)JAP

Bailey Fallon: Seeing Stars: Comparative Features of Visual Systems in Asteroids (Birk et al. 2018, Sigl et al. 2016)RDP

Emily Lamm: Climate Change’s Impact on Coral Eating Sea Star Outbreaks (Uthicke et al. 2015)LAR

Hemichordata

Chordata

Faculty sponsors: JDAJon Allen, College of William and Mary; KAJKevin Judge, MacEwan University; JAPJan Pechenik, Tufts University; RDPBob Podolsky, College of Charleston; LARLaura Romano, Denison University

 


Information for course instructors

Use. Instructors might consider using these materials in several ways:

  1. To encourage students to use the webpage as a general resource for exploring information about research on invertebrate animals.

  2. To assign student RFBs to supplement course readings.

  3. To suggest entries as examples for students to write their own RFBs.

  4. To network with other faculty teaching about invertebrates and to communicate about this assignment and other pedagogy.

  5. To use the RFBs as a source of ideas for material in their courses.

Assignment. For an example of an assignment that you could use in your class to generate student RFBs, see my class website.

Submission. To submit material generated in your course for potential inclusion on this website, please follow these guidelines:

  1. Contact the site editor with the title and phylum of organisms that are the focus of the entry or entries you are interested in submitting. Plan to submit no more than 2 per semester, although you may propose more, especially if they add to taxonomic diversity on the site.  Be sure to gain final permission from the student to publish their work before submitting it.

  2. Act as associate editor, supervising the revision of the work to meet writing standards and general guidelines as described below.

  3. Follow this general guide in preparing the entry in collaboration with the student who wrote it:

> The entry should discuss the general biological issue, specific question(s), essential methods, relevant results, and important biological conclusions of one (or at most two that relate) published primary literature articles.

> The entry should be 500 to 1000 words, composed and submitted in .docx, using Calibri 12 pt. font.  Use 1.15 line spacing for the text and 1.0 spacing for the figure and table legends.

> The entry should be headed by a brief title, the students name and institution, and the full citation(s) for the focal article(s).  Any other work that is cited can go in an "Additional Literature Cited" section at the end.

> The text should be accompanied by a single data graphic (table or figure).  The graphic may be redrawn or changed to coordinate with the text.  The graphic should be numbered, should include an appropriate caption, and should be referred to by number in the text.

> Use any of the entries on this site for examples of final formatting.