I found the source of ecological information through the podcast Big Biology (Episode 75). It is an article first posted in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The bibliographical information is:
Werner, G. D., Cornelissen, J. H., Cornwell, W. K., Soudzilovskaia, N. A., Kattge, J., West, S. A., & Kiers, E. T. (2018). Symbiont switching and Alternative Resource Acquisition Strategies Drive Mutualism Breakdown. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(20), 5229–5234. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1721629115
The paper is an academic peer-reviewed research material. It outlines the authors’ Hidden Rate Model approach to study why symbiotic relationships between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plants have broken down through their evolutionary history.
From the flow chart on “Tutorial: How to Evaluate Sources of Scientific Information” in this Module, I was able to determine the following:
- It is an academic research source because it includes a bibliography and in-text citation.
- Since the paper was posted on PNAS, we know it is peer-reviewed. All papers submitted to this journal are peer-reviewed by at least two independent experts.
- In addition, we can tell it is research material because it has “Methods” and “Results” sections. Also, the PNAS platform states it is a research article on top of the title.