Today, research and fact checking are incredibly important to do in order to get the best information regarding any topic. There are a variety of ways to gather research but even if a researcher gathers a lot of research, it is possible that they will miss important facts. To mitigate this, most researchers would look at peer-reviewed literature. To break it down further, there are three types of literature. Primary, secondary, and tertiary. Each are important on their own ways and can act as a means to continue researching and learning about a topic. In plant ecology, knowing which type of research to use is beneficial since some peer-reviewed sources use ideas and research from other sources.
Firstly, many researchers would look at tertiary sources to begin their research. While this type of source is not usually referenced in research papers, tertiary sources summarize a lot of the important research and findings of plant ecology. Additionally, these sources provide links to other resources and show where the author got their information from. Some examples of tertiary sources include encyclopedias, dictionaries textbooks etc. Wikipedia articles such as the article about Forest ecology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_ecology) since it gives an overview of major research findings and other important information on forest ecology (both plants and animals.
Next, researchers would look at secondary sources. These sources can also be found in textbooks and encyclopedias but are typically reviews of primary research articles. An example of this is the review: Trait-Based Plant Ecology by Nathan Swenson. This is a review of the book titled Plant Functional Diversity, organism Traits, Community Structure, and Ecosystem properties by Eric Garnier et al. the review summarizes the most important points in each chapter. The review is concluded by the author stating that the book is a good way for researchers to begin to think about trait-based ecology.
Finally, researchers would look at primary research literature. This type of literature always contains a section for methods and observations. Interviews, surveys, observations, and research papers are all examples of primary research because the researcher had collected the research with a team or by themselves. An example would be the article, Evolutionary ecology of plant–microbe interactions: soil microbial structure alters selection on plant traits by Jennifer Lau and Jay Lennon. This article discussed the influence that bacteria and other protozoa have on plant diversity. Additionally, they manipulated the soil environment to see the impacts that the differences would have on natural selection of plant traits.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 