Ecology (5th Edition) Edit edition

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The most essential requirement of any scientific study or research is relevant data and statistics. These can only be deduced through prolonged and complete observation and an analysis of the respective issue. This requires long durations of manual study. This manual study can now be done with the effective aid of tools known as research tools. Canopy cranes and stable isotope analysis are examples of research tools.

The impact of a research tool on its respective field can be calculated via the variance in the time taken to do the same task without the tool. Another important criterion for its evaluation is how much it increases the productive data collection. Let us consider the tools one by one to understand their effect on study.

The Canopy Cranes

These cranes can cover a height of required area as per the studies. They can elongate vertically as well as horizontally up to their maximum utility limitation. The methodology and effects are as follows:

• The most important part of its utilization was in the study of forest ecosystem components, such as nutrient supply, which involved flora and fauna inhabiting the highest trees. Such a task used to require the climbing of trees, and the topmost area could not be viewed. However, when canopy cranes are used, the same study is easier, less time–consuming, and less cumbersome.

• Photosynthesis analysis requires sampling the highest producer level to make the average estimate practical. This has been made easier, faster, and larger in scale by canopy cranes.

• Migration studies are an important aspect in ecological and population studies. These studies involve viewing the inhabitants of the highest trees. The usage of canopy cranes enables ecologists to observe the changes in a species’ population in a specific area, regardless of how high its habitat is. Also, the observation area becomes far clearer when the study involves monitoring from a higher level than on the ground.

Stable Isotope Analysis:

This analysis is the study of substances with the help of specific element isotopes. These isotopes usually do not have radioactivity, and those few that do have half-lives beyond the length of the study. This technology has been a milestone achievement in biochemical analysis.

Science is made up of living components. Their abundance, relativity, nutrition, metabolism, toxicity, population, migration, and other parameters can be analyzed by studying specific elements or compound accumulations through stable isotope analysis. The methodology and effect:

• Food web, food chain analysis has become more effective and productive with the help of stable isotopes in their respective areas of study. For example, instead of counting to find the number of producers in an ecosystem, one can employ a carbon isotope (stable) and analyze its presence in the specific live flora or algae. This would reduce time and give an accurate number of samples studied.

• The migration of a species can be estimated through stable isotope study. For instance, in order to understand the migration of a bird species from temperate to tropic regions, the food of that bird species can be laced with the stable isotope in the temperate region. Later, the blood samples of birds inhabiting the tropic region can be studied at regular intervals, and the presence of the same stable isotope would show the migrated bird. Hence, the total number of migrants can be calculated.

• All of the above mentioned parameters have become less time-consuming and more relevance-oriented with experimental proof since the employment of these tools.

As explained above, the usage of new tools make the information-gathering methodology is less time-consuming and less complicated. Hence, it improves experimentation and modeling. This is directly linked to the hypothesis and prediction of results, so these also benefit from the new techniques.

Hence, it can be concluded that these new tools improve the scientific method.