Requirements to pass the unit

This unit cannot be completed online. Assessment for this unit consists of quizzes, short practical/tutorial reports, a major written report, and a final exam. Submission of all assessments and completion of all exams is essential for adequate progress, since all assessment tasks are required to master the content of this unit. It will be essential to keep up with the lectures and associated quizzes, and the practicals/tutorials and their associated short reports, as marks accrue throughout the semester.

All assessments will be graded, and we will make marks available within two-three weeks of the assessment's due date. Marks will be available on Gradebook in iLearn. Feedback on the written assignment will be provided through Turnitin when the marks are released.

To pass this unit you must: 

• Participate in the weekly practical classes, which will be on-campus
• Attend one of the fieldwork sessions: either Session 1 on September 2 and 3 or Session 2 on September 9 and 10. The sessions will be held on the weekend.
• Achieve a total mark equal to or greater than 50% 

Quizzes on lecture material (10%)

There will be five multiple-choice quizzes throughout the semester, each worth 2%. The quizzes are designed to incentivise staying up to date with lecture material. Quizzes will be held in Weeks 2, 4, 6, 10, 12. Each quiz will open on iLearn on the Wednesday (after the lecture) and close on the Sunday of that week, at midnight. You are allowed two attempts per quiz. Once you start the quiz, you will have 60 minutes per attempt to complete it. The quizzes will be automatically marked, and the marks and correct answers will be released once submissions have been completed.

The questions are designed to ensure that you have familiarity with the lecture material. They do not require a deep understanding of the lecture material (deeper understanding will be assessed in the exams, and in the major written report).

Short reports on practical classes and tutorials (25%)

We will run weekly practicals/tutorials throughout the semester. In-person attendance for these classes is expected. A short report from five of the classes will require submission through iLearn, either one week after the class (in Weeks 3, 4, 6 and the reports will be due in Weeks 4, 5, 7, respectively) or on the day of the class (in Weeks 10, 11).  Each short report will be worth 5% of your grade. These reports are designed to test your knowledge of topics covered in these classes, which will generally coincide with topics covered in lectures. More information on these assessments will be provided as the semester progresses.

This unit does not have a Mid-semester Exam.

Plant function report (25%)

Students will submit (through Turnitin) a substantial written report related to field/lab work carried out during the on-campus sessions. The report will be due in Week 10, and must be written in the style of a scientific journal article and will require that students conduct a small literature review, analyze data collected during the on-campus sessions, and use this information to test hypotheses regarding plant form and function. Please use the following list to check your assignment before electronic submission:

• Text is the required length
• Text has been proof-read and spell-checked
• References are reputable sources, and are cited at appropriate points within the text
• Formatting of references in the text and the reference list follows the style of the Austral Ecology journal.
• Assignment is your own work - not copied verbatim from reference sources or other students. (see note on plagiarism, below, and the relevant University Policy)

More information on this assessment will be provided as the semester progresses. 

Final examination (40%)

The final exam will be three hours duration and held in the official university examination period at the end of the session. The exam will consist of short-, medium- and extended-answer questions. 

Checklist for written assessments

For all written assessments: please use the following list to check your assignments before electronic submission.

• Text is the required length
• Text has been proof-read and spell-checked
• References are reputable sources (not Wikipedia!), and are cited at appropriate points within the text
• Formatting of references follows the style of a standard ecological journal, e.g. Austral Ecology or Functional Ecology.
• Assignment is your own work – no passages have been copied verbatim from reference sources or from other students. (see note on plagiarism, below, and the relevant University Policy)

Late assessment submission penalty 

From 1 July 2022, Students enrolled in Session-based units with written assessments will have the following university standard late penalty applied. Please see https://students.mq.edu.au/study/assessment-exams/assessments for more information. 

Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, a 5% penalty (of the total possible mark) will be applied each day a written assessment is not submitted, up until the 7th day (including weekends). After the 7th day, a grade of '0' will be awarded even if the assessment is submitted. Submission time for all written assessments is set at 11:55 pm. A 1-hour grace period is provided to students who experience a technical concern.

For any late submission of time-sensitive tasks, such as scheduled tests/exams, performance assessments/presentations, and/or scheduled practical assessments/labs, students need to submit an application for Special Consideration.  

Assessments where Late Submissions will be accepted 

In this unit, late submissions will be accepted as follows: 

• Assessment Quizzes – YES, Standard Late Penalty applies
• Assessment Short Reports – YES, Standard Late Penalty applies 
• Assessment Plant Function Report – YES, Standard Late Penalty applies  
• Assessment Final Exam – NO, unless Special Consideration is Granted 

Plagiarism

Students are required to write reports via the plagiarism detection software Turnitin. This can be accessed on the unit’s iLearn website. Your assessment task will be automatically compared to work of your classmates, previous students from Macquarie and other universities, and with material available on the Internet. The results of the analysis will be sent to the unit Convenor. Any evidence of plagiarism will be dealt with following University policy. The penalties imposed by the University for plagiarism are serious and may include loss of marks, referral to a Faculty Disciplinary Committee, or even expulsion from the University.

Moderation of assessments

This unit and its assessments are moderated according to departmental and university requirements. For example, where assessments are marked by multiple people, all agree on the marking process and marks are compared to ensure consistency.

Special considerations 

The Special Consideration Policy aims to support students who have been impacted by short-term circumstances or events that are serious, unavoidable and significantly disruptive, and which may affect their performance in assessment. 

Written Assessments: If you experience circumstances or events that affect your ability to complete the written assessments in this unit on time, please inform the convenor and submit a Special Consideration request through ask.mq.edu.au.

Weekly practice-based tasks: To pass the unit you need to demonstrate ongoing development of skills and application of knowledge in 8 out of 10 of the weekly practical classes. If you miss a weekly practical class due to a serious, unavoidable and significant disruption, contact your convenor ASAP as you may be able to attend another class that week. If it is not possible to attend another class, you should still contact your convenor for access to class material to review in your own time. 

Note that a Special Consideration should only be applied for if you miss more than two of the weekly practical classes.   

On-campus attendance is required for all offerings of this course. 

Week 1 classes

Lectures and practicals will be delivered from Week 1. The first lecture will be delivered on 24 July 2023, and the first practical session will be held on 24 and 25 July 2023. 

Methods of communications

We will communicate with you via your university email and through announcements on iLearn. Queries to convenors can be sent to the unit convenor via the contact email on iLearn. General queries can be placed on the iLearn discussion board, which will be monitored by the unit convenor. 

Requirements for practical classes

The work carried out during practical/tutorial classes is an important and integral part of the course. You must read and either download the practical notes on a laptop or tablet or print them to bring to each class. Laptops are also available for short-term use during the practical class.

Laboratory requirements

• Notebook and pencils/pens for notes & diagrams
• Laptop, if you have one, with Excel and Word (or open source equivalents)
• USB data stick to transfer data (recently checked with anti-virus software)
• Enclosed shoes (you cannot be present in the lab or field without these)
• No food or drink in University laboratories
• Please switch mobile phones off

Field requirements

• Pencils/pens for notes
• Appropriate clothing (walking shoes or boots, rain jacket, sun protection, trousers and long-sleeved shirt)
• Water bottle and lunch/snacks
• Small backpack to carry your equipment
• First aid kits will be supplied

NOTE 1: During the on-campus sessions, there will be a 15-minute walk into the Macquarie (MQ) Ecology Reserve and working in uneven terrain. Any students with medical issues or requiring assistance should indicate this on their fieldwork participation form. All students must submit this form; otherwise, they cannot participate in the fieldwork. Please submit this form, via iLearn, by the due date advertised closer to the time.

NOTE 2: Ticks and leeches can occasionally be present at the MQ Ecology Reserve, especially near the creek. Neither insect carries disease, but they are certainly a nuisance. To minimize chances of problems you need to wear suitable clothing (as described above). We suggest tucking your pants into your socks, shirts into pants, etc, and liberally applying insect repellent to your shoes, clothes and exposed skin.

Recommended reading

There is no set textbook for this subject. Recommended books (all available from the library as eBooks or hardcopies) that, between them, cover many of the topics dealt with in lectures include:

• Attiwill PM & Wilson B (Eds) (2006). Ecology : An Australian Perspective. Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Vic. Second Edition.
• Atwell BJ, Kriedemann PE & Turnbull CGN (1999). Plants In Action: Adaptation In Nature, Performance In Cultivation. MacMillan Education Australia, Melbourne.
• Chapin FSI, Matson PA & Mooney HA (2011). Principles of Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology. Springer, New York.
• Garnier E, Navas M-L, Grigulis K (2016). Plant Functional Diversity: Organism traits, community structure, and ecosystem properties. Oxford University Press, Oxford
• Gurevitch J, Scheiner SM & Fox GA (2021). The Ecology of Plants. Sinauer Associates, Inc. Publishers, Sunderland, MA. Third Edition.
• Lambers H, Chapin FS & Pons TL (2019). Plant Physiological Ecology. Springer-Verlag, New York. Third Edition (or Second Edition – published 2008).
• Pugnaire FI & Valladares F (Eds) (2007). Functional plant ecology. CRC Press, Boca Raton. Second Edition.
• Raven PH, Evert RF, Eichhorn SE (2013). Biology of plants. WH Freeman, New York. Eighth Edition (or Seventh Edition – published 2005).
• Willis KJ & McElwain JC (2014). The Evolution of Plants. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Second Edition.

Most lectures will include a list of key readings (journal articles, book chapters etc). Where possible, we will make these available, whether through the Library Reserve or through the unit iLearn page. Please note that many of these readings are available online as eBooks. 

Technology used and required

All course content will be made available via the iLearn unit webpage (the URL for iLearn is: http://ilearn.mq.edu.au/).  You are expected to use iLearn for:

• Regularly checking subject announcements;
• Downloading lecture and reference materials;
• Submitting assignments;
• Checking your grades;

Students will be required to use appropriate software, particularly Excel and Minitab (or R, if you like), for data analysis and graphing. Minitab is available to download and install on your laptop via http://web.science.mq.edu.au/it/software/. Alternatively, you may choose to run Minitab via iLab (see https://wiki.mq.edu.au/display/iLab/About). R can be downloaded online for free from http://www.r-project.org.

• Lectures will be delivered in person this year. The core lecture material will be essentially the same as in 2022, and we will have a set of guest lectures given by outstanding researchers in the field in the second half of the course.
• Some lectures will be pre-recorded and available online. We will have a Q&A/discussion session with the corresponding week's lecture material during the weekly lecture hour. These sessions will be on campus and will not be recorded. During this session, we will discuss important concepts and questions that will likely be included in the final exam. So, students are highly encouraged to attend the sessions. 
• At the end of each lecture, you will be given 5 minutes to write down and submit a question related to the day's lecture. This task will be used to assess your understanding of the topic and will be potntially included in future assessments of the unit.