Roger Downie

Experience with a dissection opt-out scheme in university level biology

This paper reports on a scheme where first-year university biology students are given a choice between dissecting a rat or opting out and doing an equivalent laboratory exercise using a model. Over five years, around 10 per cent of students have chosen to opt out of the dissection. Their examination results, even on questions related to the dissection, have not been significantly different from other students. An overwhelming majority of students in the class support the opt-out scheme. The decision on whether or not to opt out involves a discussion of the issues with peers and class demonstrators, and therefore acts as a valuable exercise in practical bioethical decision-making. This scheme may have useful lessons for all university biology course organizers.

Approaches to the teaching of bioethics and professional ethics in undergraduate courses

Abstract The role of ethics in bioscience undergraduate degrees is now widely accepted, but how ethics should be taught, who should teach it and what the curriculum should include are matters for debate. This article discusses teaching strategies: specialist options, or embed ethics in other courses, or both; use of professional philosophers, or bioscientists with ethics teaching training, or both. Experience from a bioethics programme at the University of Glasgow is discussed, including the need or not to teach technical philosophical terminology; the aims of ethics teaching (with a strong distinction made between professional ethics in science and more personal issues like animal experimentation); strategies for sustainability in staffing; and teaching and assessment methods.

The use of animals in biology teaching in higher education

This article reports surveys of biology staff and students at Scottish universities, concerning attitudes to the use of animals in education. Opinion is very varied, among staff and students, but it is clear that the design of practical work on animals involves a set of choices, from a wide range of possibilities, and that ethical decisions form an important part of this process. There is also widespread agreement that ‘bioethics’ should be an integral part of biology teaching.

The teaching of bioethics in the higher education of biologists

A survey of students in three separate biological science courses at Glasgow University shows that students regard bioethics education as very important to prospective biologists, and no less important than medical ethics in the education of clinicians. They believe that the special technical knowledge scientists acquire confers special responsibilities to ponder the implications of new discoveries. This paper describes an approach to bioethics education in one subject area—developmental biology—and considers the need for such education in all branches of biology.

How Much Potential Biodiversity and Conservation Value Can a Regenerating Rainforest Provide? A ‘Best-Case Scenario’ Approach from the Peruvian Amazon

The structure and underlying functions of the majority of the worlds tropical forests have been disrupted by human impacts, but the potential biodiversity and conservation value of regenerating forests is still debated. One review suggests that on average, regenerating tropical forests hold 57% (±2.6%) of primary forest species richness, raising doubt about a viable second chance to conserve biodiversity through rainforest regeneration. Average values, however, likely underestimate the potential benefit to biodiversity and conservation because they are drawn from many studies of short-term regeneration and studies confounded by ongoing human disturbance. We suggest that the true potential biodiversity and conservation value of regenerating rainforest could be better assessed in the absence of such factors and present a multi-taxa case study of faunal biodiversity in regenerating tropical forest in lowland Amazonia. We found that biodiversity of this regenerating site was higher than might have been expected, reaching 87% (±3.5%) of primary forest alpha diversity and an average of 83% (±6.7) of species estimated to have occurred in the region before disturbance. Further, the regenerating forest held 37 species of special conservation concern, representing 88% of species of highest conservation importance predicted to exist in primary forest from the region. We conclude that this specific regenerating rainforest has high biodiversity and conservation value, and that whilst preserving primary forest is essential, our results suggest that under a best-case scenario of effective conservation management, high levels of biodiversity can return to heavily disturbed tropical forest ecosystems.

Past Human Disturbance Effects upon Biodiversity are Greatest in the Canopy; A Case Study on Rainforest Butterflies

A key part of tropical forest spatial complexity is the vertical stratification of biodiversity, with widely differing communities found in higher rainforest strata compared to terrestrial levels. Despite this, our understanding of how human disturbance may differentially affect biodiversity across vertical strata of tropical forests has been slow to develop. For the first time, how the patterns of current biodiversity vary between three vertical strata within a single forest, subject to three different types of historic anthropogenic disturbance, was directly assessed. In total, 229 species of butterfly were detected, with a total of 5219 individual records. Butterfly species richness, species diversity, abundance and community evenness differed markedly between vertical strata. We show for the first time, for any group of rainforest biodiversity, that different vertical strata within the same rainforest, responded differently in areas with different historic human disturbance. Differences were most notable within the canopy. Regenerating forest following complete clearance had 47% lower canopy species richness than regenerating forest that was once selectively logged, while the reduction in the mid-storey was 33% and at ground level, 30%. These results also show for the first time that even long term regeneration (over the course of 30 years) may be insufficient to erase differences in biodiversity linked to different types of human disturbance. We argue, along with other studies, that ignoring the potential for more pronounced effects of disturbance on canopy fauna, could lead to the underestimation of the effects of habitat disturbance on biodiversity, and thus the overestimation of the conservation value of regenerating forests more generally.

Teaching methods in biology-how can we get information to flow?

academic biologists in one university and finds that although keen interest in innovation is expressed, little is done about it. A major problem seems to be information flow, and the article discusses simple ways of improving this

Molecular phylogenetics of the glass frog Hyalinobatrachium orientale (Anura: Centrolenidae): evidence for Pliocene connections between mainland Venezuela and the island of Tobago

Abstract The presence of Hyalinobatrachium orientale in Tobago and in northeastern Venezuela is puzzling as this species is unknown from the island of Trinidad, an island often hypothesized to be a stepping-stone for the mainland fauna to colonize Tobago. A period of extended isolation on Tobago could result in the Hyalinobatrachium population becoming distinct from the mainland H. orientale. Here, we use 12S and 16S rDNA gene fragments from nine H. orientale specimens from Tobago and the mainland to assess their relationship and taxonomy, as well as the tempo and mode of speciation. The results suggest H. orientale from Venezuela and Tobago are monophyletic and the two populations diverged about 3 million years ago. This estimate corresponds with the drier climate and lower sea levels of the Pliocene glaciation periods. We hypothesize that lower sea levels resulted in land-bridge formations connecting the mainland and Tobago, with a corridor of habitat allowing H. orientale to colonize Tobago to the west of Trinidad.

Attitudes to the Uses of Animals in Higher Education: Has Anything Changed?

Abstract Bioscience staff and students at Glasgow University in session 2005–06 were questioned on their attitudes to animal uses in higher education, as follow-up to a similar survey 20 years before. Disapproval by students of animal use was generally reduced compared to 20 years ago, but students remained in a ‘moral bind’, recognising the interest and educational value of animal uses such as dissection, while disapproving of killing animals for this purpose. Staff strongly rejected the proposition that animal use such as dissection de-sensitises students: students also rejected this, but less strongly. Both staff and students recognised that students did become more willing to use animals as they progressed, but attributed this not to desensitisation but to a better understanding of the values of animal experimentation. Final year students were more aware than first years concerning the ethical standards required of experiments on humans, and generally, final year students showed development/ progression in ethical sensitivity, compared to first years. Staff and students agreed on the value of ethics coverage in bioscience degree programmes, similar to findings 20 years before.

A Postgraduate Researcher — Undergraduate Interview Scheme: Enhancing Research-Teaching Linkages to Mutual Benefit

Abstract A science communication project is described where undergraduates in groups interview postgraduate researchers about their research and the life of a researcher. Mutual benefits to undergraduates and researchers are described in terms of creativity, the research-teaching links agenda and employability.