At Erindale College, undergraduates have the opportunity to be involved in biological research either in the form of a summer field project or as a senior year independent research project (BIO 481) or both.  Projects are designed to introduce senior biology undergraduates to the workings of a research laboratory. During the project you will be part of my lab, learn how experiments are set up, how data are collected, how those data are analyzed and how the results of the experiment are written up. Many of the techniques you will have already learned from your undergraduate lab courses (e.g., BIO 204, 304, 318) and will be used in your project but one thing that is different is that you are entirely responsible for the work you put into your project. You and I will collaborate on what your project is and once it has been finalized, it is up to you to put in the time required for its completion and we will meet regularly during the year to discuss it as it progresses.

    Undergraduates can apply for summer research funds through the new Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) awards that pay $4000.00 (plus another $1000.00 from my laboratory's research grant).  Applications for these awards can be obtained from the office of the Associate Dean (Sciences) in room 2038 (South Building) and deadlines are usually in early February. (Click here for more information on how to apply).  To receive one of these awards, students should first arrange with a professor to work in their labs during the summer months.  You and your professor will then set up a project that you will describe briefly on the application form.  These awards are generally limited to undergraduates with A- or better GPAs.  In my lab, projects that begin with the NSERC summer award can be extended after the summer into the BIO 481 research course at Erindale.

    Students are also encouraged to apply to me for summer research assistantship positions with my lab.  These jobs involve assisting other students in their research as well as performing their own projects.  All summer projects with my lab are conducted at the Queen's University Biological Station in eastern Ontario (see below for more information) and, as with NSERC summer projects, research assistantships can be extended into the BIO 481 research course in the fall.

    The BIO 481 course should be thought of as a lab intensive, senior level course; that is, it will take at least 5 hours/week of your time (i.e., 2 lecture hours, 3 lab hours for an ordinary course). This time requirement will be lighter during the first term but will rapidly increase towards the end of the year so you should budget your courses to allow yourself more time in the spring term for your data collection and analyses. At the same time however, you cannot neglect your other courses and I will make sure that you are not spending too much time on your 481.

    In addition to your project, we get together with the other 481 students once a month (or more, depending on the number of students in the lab) for a journal meeting. In this, each student is responsible for surveying one recent journal that publishes reports pertinent to what we do in the lab and picking out from it one paper that is particularly relevant to your project. I will do the first paper to introduce you to how we can cover the topics covered in the paper. This will, hopefully, give you some insight into how scientific reports are written and how to avoid some of the pitfalls that might have cost you marks in the past in your lab courses.

    We also meet with the Insect Behaviour Group every week for an informal session where people talk about their projects, ideas, or just what is happening in the field of insect behaviour.  These meetings are usually co-ordinated by one of the graduate students but all are welcome to attend.  By November you will have a fairly good idea as to where your project is heading and then you will give a short presentation to the group for their feedback.

I.  Sensory ecology and evolution

    Undergraduates can elect to do their research as part of a summer project in our lab at the Queen's University Biological Station (QUBS) located near the town of Chaffey's Locks in eastern Ontario. We move to QUBS every June and set up auditory and behaviour experiments in the station's laboratories. The area that QUBS sits on has an unusually diverse insect fauna and allows us to use populations of wild insects to understand their natural behaviour. Working here is a pleasant summer-long experience but it requires a three month period away from Toronto. Students work in the lab on a variety of projects as well as gathering data for their own project.  At the end of the summer, the students bring their data back to the lab at Erindale and continue their analyses and interpretation before writing them up as a formal report in the spring.

Here are some publications that have come from work at QUBS (undergrads are boldly indicated)

Surlykke, A., Filskov, M., Fullard, J.H., Forrest, E. 1999. Auditory relationships to size in noctuid moths: bigger is better. NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN 86:238-241.

Fullard, J.H. and Dawson, J.W. 1999. Why do diurnal moths have ears? NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN 86:276-279.

Fullard, J.H., Forrest, E., and Surlykke, A. (1998) Intensity responses of the single auditory receptor of notodontid moths: a test of the peripheral interaction hypothesis in moth ears. J. EXP. BIOL. 201:3419-3424

Lewis, F. and Fullard, J.H. (1996) The neurometamorphosis of the ear in the gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar and its homologue in the earless forest tent caterpillar moth, Malacosoma disstria. J. NEUROBIO. 31:245-262.

Faure, P, J.H. Fullard and J. Dawson (1993) The gleaning attacks of the northern long-eared bat, Myotis septentrionalis, are relatively inaudible to moths. J. EXP. BIOL. 178:173-189.

Lewis, F., J.H. Fullard and S. Morrill (1993) Auditory influences on the flight behaviour of moths at a Nearctic site. II. Flight times, heights and erraticism. CAN. J. ZOOL. 71:1562-1568.

Morrill, S.B. and J.H. Fullard (1992) Auditory influences on the flight behaviour of moths in a Nearctic site. I. Flight tendency. CAN. J. ZOOL. 70:1097-1101.

    In early September, we move back to the main laboratories at Erindale College, University of Toronto in Mississauga, Ontario. Although Erindale is affiliated with the University of Toronto, it is located about an hour from the main St. George campus and, for the most part, the Biology Group at Erindale operates independently. Students here perform their BIO 481 project in my laboratory but are free to use the facilities of the main campus. Most of the research libraries are located on the main campus but with the advent of the World Wide Web, students at Erindale have full access to over 3000 journals and can order books through the inter-university system.  Projects in the Erindale lab deal with understanding the mechanisms of the auditory system in insects and how these systems enable insects to escape predators or find mates. The insects we use for these studies come from colonies raised during the summer as well as those purchased from suppliers around the world. As part of their senior year undergraduates may have the option of teaching lab courses in physiology or neurobiology.

Here are some publications that have come from work at the Erindale labs (undergrads are boldly indicated):

MacDermid., V.. and Fullard., J.H. (1998) Not all receptor cells are equal: octopamine exerts no influence on auditory thresholds in the noctuid moth, Catocala cerogama. NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN 85:505-507

Northcott, M. and Fullard, J.H. (1996) The closed-loop nature of the tymbal response in Cycnia tenera. BRAIN BEHAV. EVOL. 48:130-136.

Dawson, D.W. and Fullard, J.H. (1995) The neuroethology of sound production in tiger moths (Arctiidae). II. Location of the thoracic circuitry controlling the tymbal responce in Cycnia tenera Hubner. J. COMP. PHYSIOL. A 176:541-549.

Fullard, J.H. and B. Heller (1990) Functional organization of the arctiid moth tymbal (Insecta, Lepidoptera). J. MORPH. 204:57-65.

Fullard, J.H., G.K. Morris and A.C. Mason (1989) Auditory processing in the black-sided meadow katydid Conocephalus nigropleurum (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae). J. COMP. PHYSIOL. A 164: 501- 512.

Cardone, B. and Fullard, J.H. (1988) Auditory characteristics and sexual dimorphism in the gypsy moth. PHYSIOL ENT. 13:9-14.

Part I.  Sept - Oct 15: Project finalization and literature review

    In the first part of the 481, we will determine what you will do for your lab study. This will be based on what aspects of insect sensory biology you find most interesting and can be subdivided into three topics: 1. anatomy/morphology, 2. electrophysiology, 3. behaviour. Any of these categories can have a sensory basis and there are many examples of each that you can consider for your own project.

    Once you have your project, you will spend the first month reviewing the published literature that pertains to your subject. This will require you to go to the journals (many of which are located in the downtown libraries) and find relevant articles on similar projects. Also the University of Toronto's library system via the World Wide Web has subscriptions to over 3500 electronic journals that you can access from the laboratory's computer.  This literature search will be written up as a review article in the format of the journal Trends in the Neurosciences and will be graded and handed back to you. The university requires that you have at least 10% of your final mark before the drop date (Nov. 1) so you will have the option of dropping the 481 if you wish to without academic penalty.  This review will reduce the amount of work you have to put into the writing of your final report since you be able to use parts of it in your introduction and discussion.

The deadline for the report is Oct 15.

Literature Review Format

Style: Trends in Neurosciences

Length: 10 pages text, double-spaced (not including figure legends)

Figures: minimum 10, maximum 20 with legends

Articles: minimum 20 (no more than 10 pre 1980)
 

Part II.  Oct 15 - Nov 30: Lab familiarization

    This time will be spent learning the techniques that you will use in your experiment. Some of these procedures will be reviews of those you learned in the lab portions of your undergraduate courses but I will assume that everyone will need refreshers on things like oscilloscopes. If your project entail a neurophysiological examination, the most important of these techniques that you will learn will be that of microdissection, the surgical procedure required to expose the small nervous systems of the insects you will use in your experiments. These techniques require some time and a lot of practice but by mastering them before you start on your study, you can reduce the time required for your data collection.

    Also part of this time you will spend looking after the insects you will use for your experiments. Some of you will collect the eggs of local katydids and begin to raise them to adulthood, others will monitor the moth pupae that are in storage in the cold room at Erindale.

(December - mid-term exams - no lab work)

Part III.  Jan 03 - Feb 01: Data collection

    In the new year you will begin your actual experiments with your study animals. These will be insects that you will have either raised or looked after during the fall. For moth projects, these insects will have been brought out of cold storage in late December and placed into warm incubator rooms where they will emerge as adults, for katydid projects these insects will be entering their final adult stage and will ready for experiments.

    This time will be the most hectic part of your year and it is important that you set aside enough time in your week to get the work done. There will be a crunch on the equipment in the lab and we may have to set up specific times for each student to use the rigs. In addition, there is competition on the equipment by undergraduate labs.

Part IV.  Feb 01 - March 01: Data analyses

    This month will be spent going over your results and seeing what, if any, additional experiments need to be run. Our lab relies on a rigorous statistical treatment of results so a fair bit of your time will be spent learning how to use the computer programmes that analyze your data and plot them into a final form for your report. In preparation for this part of your project you should become very familiar with how to use a IBM type PC computer. This is something you should have already done for your other courses but if you are still uneasy in using computers, the fall, not the spring, is the time to learn.
 

Part V.  March 01 - April 01: Report write-up

    After your data has been analyzed you will spend this month putting it together in the format of a scientific paper from one of the journals we will cover each month. The final report forms the largest portion of your final mark so you should treat it with care. We will talk throughout the year about how to write up these reports so it will not come as a surprise to you when you sit down to finally do it. The biology department requires that you hand in your final report by the end of term (April 11).  The 481 co-ordinator reads them before I do and hands them back to me with his/her comments.
 

Part VI.  April 11 - 15: Presentation

    Sometime this week (the actual date is set by the 481 co-ordinator), there will be a day long 481 presentation where all of the students deliver the results of their projects to undergraduates, graduate students and faculty. This is a semi-formal affair but is a requirement of the 481 course. In the weeks leading up to this days, we will have practice sessions in the lab where each of you will give rehearsals of your talk. You shouldn't be terrorized by this and might actually win the prize for the best presentation (about a hundred dollars!).

A. Literature review (Due Oct. 15) 10%

B. Journal club participation 10% (may be replaced with something else depending upon lab size)

C. Bench time 10%

D. Final report (Due April 11) 60%

E. Presentation (Last week) 10%

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