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Ecology Writing Guide |
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Materials and methods
A materials and methods section gives the reader the necessary information to replicate your study or experiment. It also shows a reader that you:
- participated in the lab/field trip
- performed the activities competently
- understood how and why the study was performed
- presented your own results
You may be given a list of materials and a set of instructions (ie, methods) in a laboratory or field manual. Do not copy these directly or provide a list of steps or bullet points. Instead, summarise the methods in your own words in full sentences and paragraphs.
If you are using methodology that has been used elsewhere (ie, if you are replicating a similar study in the literature), you should reference where the procedure was first used.
Remember to include a brief explanation of the statistics that were used to analyse your data.
Example materials and methods
Here's an example modified from Buser et al. (2014).
Materials and methods Drosophila flies and associated Saccharomyces yeasts were collected by hand net at the Kumeu River and Goldie Estate vineyards, Auckland, New Zealand. We tested whether yeast attractiveness correlated with greater dispersal for yeasts and increased reproduction for flies. In laboratory experiments (n = 6), 200 Drosophila were placed into a cage with agar plates treated with different yeast varieties (n=35), and sterile agar plates (n = 20). After each experiment, we incubated the sterile plates and counted the number of Drosophila eggs laid and yeast colonies dispersed. Data were analysed via Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with the software program SPSS v.20.0 (IBM Corporation). |
Buser, C. C, Newcomb, R. D., Gaskett, A. C. & Goddard, M. R. (2014). Niche construction initiates the evolution of mutualistic interactions. Ecology Letters 17, 1257-1264.
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