Science

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Science

  

Suppose there are 100 farmers in a dry region, and they all need to water their crops from a common reservoir. Each farmer will take as much water as he or she can in an effort to increase yield. As a result, some farmers may end up with more water than others, and eventually the reservoir will run dry.

This is an example of the phenomenon known as “the tragedy of the commons.” In essence, it’s the idea that when individual interests prevail, common resources are likely to be overexploited. Individuals benefit by utilizing more of a resource, meaning there is little incentive for individuals not to use as much as they can.

In this exercise, you will explore whether the tragedy of the commons influences populations of red deer (Cervus elaphus) in Spain. Jerónimo Torres-Porras and his fellow researchers investigated this question after observing differences between two populations of red deer—a population in a fenced estate and a population in an unfenced estate.

· In fenced estates, individuals or hunting clubs manage the deer population, and the deer cannot leave the fenced location.

· In unfenced estates, the deer population is not managed, and they can move from one unfenced estate to another.

Many hunters want to harvest old, large males with long, branching antlers. In a fenced estate, a manager can let young males grow larger by restricting access to them. But in an unfenced estate, if a hunter waits for a medium-sized male to grow larger, another hunter might harvest that animal first. As a result, one might assume that in unfenced estates, hunters take more young males because they are in competition with other hunters. In this case, “the commons” refers to the red deer in unfenced estates, which are a shared resource. The “tragedy” is the hunting of young males before they’ve reached maturity.

Torres-Porras predicted that there would be differences in the demographics of fenced and unfenced red deer populations. (Demographics are data that describe a population, such as the percentage of males and females and the age structure.) Between 1996 and 2000, Torres-Porras and his team tested his prediction by driving through a large number of fenced and unfenced populations and recording the sex, age, size, and antler size of the red deer they saw.

Part A - Identifying steps of the scientific method

Scientists use a process known as the scientific method to conduct their research. There are various versions of this process, but they all have similar basic steps as indicated in the flow chart below. Torres-Porras took all of the steps in the flow chart after he observed differences between red deer populations in fenced and unfenced estates.

Drag the description from the Torres-Porras experiment on to the position it represents in the scientific method.

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