Species Account Project Presentation

Species Account Project

BIOL 125: Plant Taxonomy

Spring 2022

§  You will develop species accounts for 2 California plant species.  These species can be native or naturalized/introduced, but at least one should occur in the Fresno area, or at one of the Fresno County sites we have visited during class.  

o   The species will be chosen by you, pending the instructor’s approval (and can include species you have collected as part of your plant collection project)

o   Important due dates are:

§  March 15^th, get 2 species approved by Dr. Waselkov.

§  May 19^th (during finals), brief project presentation (PowerPoint); to be presented during final exam time, and then uploaded to Canvas by 5:30 pm

§  May 19^th, complete project due (as a Word Document or PDF) uploaded to Canvas by 5:30 pm

§  Each species account will be a brief, straightforward presentation of critical information on the species (one to two pages of text, if concise; plus images, maps, tables as appropriate). This should be of interest to an online user looking for a “field guide” to plants of Fresno County or California.  Keep in mind that this is geared toward a fairly general audience (somewhat versed in botany but not necessarily a specialist), and the general presentation mode (the Internet—short is good, and a bulleted format is appropriate for some of the information). Your final project will consist of your two species accounts.

§  You will also give a brief presentation to the class describing your work. It should include key highlights for your species (but need not include all information presented in your final report). The presentation format will be PowerPoint. I suggest you:

o   Present each single species account as one or two slides

§  Be sure to explain why you included the information you did\

§  Particularly emphasize distinguishing morphological features

o   Wrap up with any final information you'd like to express

o   Keep your presentation between four and five minutes in length

§  Each species account must include:

o   The full scientific name of the plant (including authority)

o   Common name(s) used in our region

o   Any widely-used taxonomic synonym(s) of the species (and discussion, as appropriate)

o   Nativity of the species (native or introduced [if the latter, area of origin])

o   Discussion of infraspecific taxa, if any

o   Classification: major clade (choose from: Fern/Lycophyte, Gymnosperm, Angiosperm: ANA Grade and Magnoliid Clade, Angiosperm: Monocot, or Angiosperm: Eudicot), order, family

o   Morphological characteristics* (continued on back!)

§  Include information on life history, habit, leaves, inflorescences, flowers, etc.

§  Distinguishing characteristics for identification

§  *This is the part that will take the most thought and work on your part. Do not plagiarize from other sources! Appropriate attribution of information here is crucial. Become very familiar with the species and be able to clearly discuss the morphology.

o   A distribution map for Fresno County for one of your species, and for all of California for the other species (using the Consortium of California Herbaria 2 website (https://www.cch2.org/portal/), to be discussed in class).

o   Any additional desired properly cited photographs and/or drawings of the species. You are welcome to include photos from the website that accompanies the Judd textbook, from the web, etc. It is critical that you properly cite these items—do not pass them off as your own! (You are, of course, welcome to include your own photo images and attribute them to yourself.) You need not include a lot of photos—aim for some brief illustration that you think appropriately accompanies your species account.

o   Any other information of note you think is important in this general presentation of the species, like economic importance or ethnobotanical uses.

o   Clear list of sources consulted in preparing the species account (this is aside from acknowledging sources of photo or drawing images, which should be done directly at the base of the images)

§  I would expect this to include, at a minimum:

·The Jepson Manual: Vascular Plants of California (print version available in lab, also online as an eFlora at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/)

·The Consortium of California Herbaria 2 database (https://www.cch2.org/portal/)

· GoogleEarth or ArcGIS online for generating a map

·CalFlora: http://www.calflora.org

·CalPhotos: http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/

· The USDA PLANTS database (http://plants.usda.gov)

·Tropicos for taxonomic synonyms (http://tropicos.org)

·CalPoly’s Urban Forest Ecosystem Institute’s guide to cultivated plant species, if your species is introduced and cultivated: https://selectree.calpoly.edu/

·A local field guide, if desired (several available in the herbarium for use, including Peterson’s Field Guide to Pacific State Wildflowers), for species with information therein (consult particularly with regard to approach to presentation)

·*Relevant primary literature available for your taxa (a monograph or revision, if possible; or a more narrow taxonomic treatment)*

§  If you are unsure if a reference is appropriate to use for this project (hint: Google Images is not an appropriate reference), consult Dr. Waselkov BEFORE you turn your final project in. 

 §  For your final project, prepare a single document (e.g., a Word or PDF file), including each species account, one after another. For each species account, images can be placed at the end, or placed directly within the text, as you prefer. Note that design layout (e.g., as one might design a format for web presentation) is not important for this project—content is the focus.  Upload this, along with your presentation PowerPoint file, onto Canvas.  

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