I would also argue that her paper conforms to the general arrangement of stases as described by Jeanne Fahenstock and Marie Secor in "The Stases in Scientific and Literary Argument."
My first claim is complicated by the introduction of several parallel lines of experience which ultimately coalesce as an inevitable conclusion - that predators shape the landscape through fear and by removing apex predators the landscape and biodiversity suffer. The experiences that form the basis of her argument are direct observations of the natural world. The eco-history forms the connecting link that ties the observations to conclusions of cause and effect. This is not a linear progression however as each piece is only a small part of the overall induction. To attempt a linear treatment of the subject would fragment her work. Instead she introduces various lines of evidence, withholding the final conclusions until the last two pages of the article. In that sense Eisenberg moves gracefully from one stasis to another but always in the pattern of fact and conclusion. There can be no linear treatment of the subject as in the case of the simple lab report. (introduction, methods, results, discussion, Gross pgs. 86-88) Eisinberg has constructed a meta-analysis from a great number of smaller, independent studies and experiments. Each of these compliments the others by showing how particular instances of predator removal show a general principle in the natural world. Together these principles unite in a grand hypothesis, the Green World Hypothesis, introduced early in the article. Each of the various principles support the greater work, such as the keystone species concept, top-down versus bottom-up and the ecology of fear. These smaller themes constitute the methods of the induction, always working from the observed to the supposed cause.
Ms Eisenberg demonstrates how a scientific paper can be at once readable and thorough. I assume that in her book from which this was excerpted, citations were given that did not appear in the online article. That would be my only criticism of this as a scientific paper.
Alan Gross, The Rhetoric of Science,Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press,1990
Fahenstock and Secor,"The Stases in Scientific and Literary Argument" Written Communication, Vol5 No 4, October 1988, 427-443
I also analyzed the excerpt from Eisenberg's book. I agree with you that eisenberg does not use a linear structure found in a basic lab report, but I believe that different parts of her paper serve the same function as many of those specific sections. For instance an introduction to a scientific paper is meant to include a positioning one's own research/experiment within the broader scope of scope of the subject being studied. Throughout the piece Eisenberg is constantly explaining the method's and conclusions of other experiments which led to her reserch dealing with tracking predators and prey. The inclusion of almost of the parts of a lab report within her short excerpt lead me to believe that it serves a similar purpose as a report. Although the arrangement of a scientific paper is supposed to aid in its effectiveness, I believe that Eisenberg has shown here that the order of the elements of a scientific paper may not be not as important as the simple cohesive inclusion of them.
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