Research question and project
Now it is your turn to choose a research question for your final project, whether you work alone or in a group.
Designing your research question
Mount Kilimanjaro is a biodiversity rich region. One can find common as well as endemic species in this region. Quantifying and mapping biodiversity as well as supply of Nature’s Contributions to People are increasingly becoming important for designing target oriented policies for conservation and management. The distribution of biodiversity at landscape scale is influenced by multiple environmental factors. Getting such data for mapping is thus aided by combining a set of field and remote sensing data. Upscaling approaches transfer existing information from local to regional scales. Benefits include spatially varying estimates, a closer match between the scale of analysis and biophysical processes, and maps of the upscaled variable at multiple scales (Le Clec’h, Solen, et al. 2018).
In this course, you are encouraged to upscale biodiversity of the Kilimanjaro region. Below you can find some examples for research questions or topics, which you might work on in your final project. You are encouraged to work on self developed research questions for your project!
Your project can draw on the following data:
- Birds
- Bats
- Insects
- Mammals
- Functional diversity (traits of species for e.g. body mass, beak size, leaf area index, etc.)
- Any other important NCPs like carbon storage
Some papers that can help you get started
Working individually/groups
You may work individually or in a group of two or three people. If you work in a group, submit one project. The scope of a group project should reflect the number of people working on it.
Project management and implementation
Creativity in research and project management are not incompatible. In fact, professional research requires the definition of some kind of aim or the organization of tasks in time schedules.
Common project management steps are:
- define the research question project and its objectives,
- break down the project into tasks and define a schedule,
- get and prepare the data you need for reaching your objectives
- design workflows for each task and implement them, and last but not least
- adjust your tasks, solve problems and be flexible.
Obviously, it makes sense to start your research project with a short project outline, which should include the project management steps outlined above. Use your project outline and the feedback you receive to complete and submit your final project. You can find the final project requirements here.
For more details on project management for scientists, see e.g. the paper of Portny & Austin 2002.