Essay 2

Why isn't biological mimicry more common?

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.

Before you use a database you should think about what you will search.
What are the main concepts in this question?
If you are going to get an idea about the incidence of mimicry it might be worth searching for articles on the theory of mimicry.
The main concepts might then be

mimicry

theory

Underneath the main concepts write down any synonyms or alternative terms.

mimicry	theory
mimetic	theories
	theoretical
	hypothesis
	hypotheses

This assignment is as much about what you don't want to find as what you do.
You don't want articles about molecular mimicry or chemical mimicry, so we will try to remove these concepts from the 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
mimicry or mimetic

Truncation
You can save yourself a bit of typing by using the truncation symbol *
Instead of typing theory or theories or theoretical or theoretically or hypothesis or hypotheses etc
you can type theor* or hypothes*

Searching for Phrases
Searching for phrases will make your searches more specific.
Phrases need to be enclosed in double quotes
e.g. removing"chemical mimic*" removes the phrase, while removing chemical mimic* will remove all citations that have both chemical and mimic etc.

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 mimicry or mimetic in the top Search for box.
I suggest that you change Topic in the in box to Title.
I suggest this because there are a lot of articles on all sorts of mimicry, not necessarily what you're after.

In the second Search for box type theor* or hypothes*.
Change Author in the second in box to Title.

You should get rid of chemical mimicry, molecular mimicry and similar terms that will make it harder to find the articles that will be useful.
To do this use NOT logic.
In the third Search for box type "chemical mimic*" or "molecular mimic*"
You can include any other term that you think will be an impediment to finding the articles you want
Change the search logic to NOT.
Change Publication Name in the third in box to Topic.
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.

Once you have read a few articles you might like to try a new search with
mimicry or mimetic as a topic
Or perhaps you want to search on particular types of mimicry such as Batesian mimicry or Mullerian mimicry.

You might want to combine this with keywords such as
incidence or frequent* or infrequent* etc

What about including evolution or evolutionary or evolve etc in your search?

 

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

Zoological Record
This database is on the same platform as Biosis Previews.
Click on Select a Database.

Scroll down to find Zoological Record and click on the link.

You can perform the same searches as with Biosis Previews.
Some of the citations you find will be the same, but there should be some new ones as well.

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.