Essay 1

Plants may not be as great a sink for anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 as was once thought.
Why might this be the case and what are the possible ecological consequences if this were true?

Prepared by Mick Draper August 2008

Books
Use the Uni of Adelaide Library Catalogue to find books on this topic. If you find the books you want are on loan, you can make a request to recall the book, but even better would be to tell your lecturer who will then contact me to have the book placed in the Reserve Collection.

Journal Articles
I'm assuming that you have read the Library tutorial for science, and have a basic understanding of how to use electronic databases to find journal articles (covered in section 5 of the tutorial). If you haven't looked at this tutorial start your search for information by working through this now.

I'm not sure what the lecturer had in mind as the reason for plants being less of a sink than first thought.
You should ask the lecturer yourself.
Could it be the changes in uptake of CO2 with increasing temperature and reduced water vapour?

Read these articles as background
Centritto, M. 2005 Photosynthesis in a changing world: photosynthesis and abiotic stresses. AGRICULTURE Ecosystems& environment 106(2-3) 115-118

Loreto F, & Centritto M 2004 Photosynthesis in a changing world Plant biology 6(3) 239-241

Now you can search a database to find similar articles.

Before you use a database you should think about what you will search.
What are the main concepts in this question?
Write them down.

elevated CO2

anthropogenic

photosynthesis

sinks

Under each of these concepts write down any synonyms or alternative terms for each concept .

elevated CO2	anthropogenic	photosynthesis	sinks
elevated Carbon Dioxide	anthropic		sink
			sequestration

Are there other terms you could add to this grid?

This should sort out most of the language requirements of your search.
Now you need to make sure that your search logic is correct.
The logic will sometimes be determined by the database you choose to search.

A good general database for ecology and evolution is Biosis Previews (mentioned in the Library tutorial for science)
The logic suggestions below are suitable for Biosis Previews.

Logic
Join the terms that are in the same column of your logic grid with OR logic.
This means that your search will find for example, citations that include
sink or sinks or sequestration

Truncation
You can save yourself a bit of typing by using the truncation symbol *
Instead of searching for sink or sinks you can use
sink*
to get the same result.

Searching for Phrases
Searching for phrases will make your searches more specific.
Phrases need to be enclosed in double quotes
e.g. searching for "elevated CO2 " finds the phrase, while searching elevated CO2 will find citations that have both elevated and CO2 included but not necessarily as a phrase.

You logic grid should now look something like the one below.

"elevated co2"	anthrop*	photosynthe*	sink*
"elevated carbon dioxide"			sequestrat*
"increas* co2"
"increas* carbon dioxide"

You can get access to Biosis Previews by clicking on the Databases tab on the Library Home.

Next click on the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology link.

Scroll down the list of databases in alphabetical order to find Biosis Previews.
Click on the link.

Enter your search terms from the first column into the top search for box.

Type the term(s) from your second column into the second search box then
CHANGE Author to Topic in the in box.

Type the term(s) from your third column into the third search box and change Publication Name to Topic.

Click on Add Another Field >>

Type in the terms from your 4th column using or between each term.
sink* or sequestrat*

Click on the Search button.

Click on Check full text options to see if the Library has particular articles

Click on the title of an article to see more details.

Click on Related Records to find citations that may be similar.

Click on References to view the citations referenced by the article.

Click on the number after Cited by to view any articles known to cite the article

Now you can do another search to find out the ecological consequences of elevated CO2 and ozone with limited land based plant sinks.

 

Other Databases

CAB Abstracts
To search this database after using Biosis Previews just click on Select a Database at the top of the screen.

 

If you need more help contact Mick Draper, but be warned that I will ask you if you have read the Library tutorial for Science, and what you have done to search for articles.