biology

Patricia Burrowes

Patricia Burrowes is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Patricia Burrowes rather than just read about it. In short: Patricia A. Burrowes Gomez (born 1961) is an American herpetologist.

Key takeaways

Patricia Burrowes belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Patricia Burrowes to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Patricia Burrowes from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Patricia A. Burrowes Gomez (born 1961) is an American herpetologist. She is a retired professor of biology from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus where she served as principal investigator of the Amphibian Disease Ecology Lab. Burrowes specializes in changes in amphibian population dynamics as a response to stressors of the Anthropocene, especially emergent infectious diseases. She is now an adjunct researcher at the National Museum of Natural History, CSIC, Madrid, Spain.

Early life and education Burrowes was born in 1961. In 1986, during her graduate studies, Burrowes and her doctoral advisor William E. Duellman collected specimens in Colombia and co-wrote A new species of marsupial frog (Hylidae: Gastrotheca) from the Andes of Southern Colombia. She completed a M.A. in systematics and ecology in 1987 at University of Kansas. Her graduate thesis was titled An ecological study of a cloud forest herpetofauna in southern Columbia. Burrowes earned a Ph.D. in ecology and systematics in 1997 at University of Kansas. Her 1997 dissertation was titled The reproductive biology and population genetics of the cave-dwelling Puerto Rican frog, Eleutherodactylus cooki.

Career and research In 1986, Burrowes began working with amphibians in Colombia, later she continued research on the amphibians of Puerto Rico but also collaborated in studies in other tropical countries. She was a professor in the biology department at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus where she served as principal investigator of the Amphibian Disease Ecology Lab. In April 2019, Burrowes as part of a team of researchers published a study in Science about a mycosis causing a dramatic population decrease in at least 501 species of amphibians.

References

External links Patricia Burrowes publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Patricia Burrowes

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Patricia Burrowes claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Patricia Burrowes before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Patricia Burrowes ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Patricia Burrowes

In research: Patricia Burrowes appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Patricia Burrowes in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Patricia Burrowes is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1961 births, 20th-century American biologists, 20th-century American women biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Patricia Burrowes outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Patricia Burrowes in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Patricia Burrowes means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Patricia Burrowes out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Patricia Burrowes in simple terms?

Patricia A. Burrowes Gomez (born 1961) is an American herpetologist.

Why does Patricia Burrowes matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Patricia Burrowes?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Patricia Burrowes.