How/When to Reach Me: Click here for my current semester schedule, including office hours, e-mail, phone numbers, etc.
Course Goals: learn major principles, models, and methods of study of individual, population, and community ecology as they apply to animals; apply ecological principles to new situations; evaluate studies of animal ecology; apply principles and models to areas such as conservation and management.
Prerequisites: Biol 110-120
Required Readings: No textbook is required. You will be required to read papers from the scientific literature on ecology; some are already listed with lecture topics below, others may be assigned. These will be on reserve in the library.
Grades: click on the following to obtain more information. Exam dates and assignment due dates are given on the lecture schedule below.
Exam policies: All exams are comprehensive. They can cover any material from lecture; reading material will be covered at the level you have been expected to know it for practice questions and/or homework questions (in other words I won't ask you material from readings if you haven't been expected to know it for practice questions or homework already.) No make-up or early exams will be given. Your final exam percentage will substitute for one of the two lecture exams if you miss an exam or if it benefits you (if one of your exam scores is lower than your final percentage.) Exam dates are given on the lecture schedule.
Policies about papers: papers (the critique and term paper) must be typed, double-spaced, and written in the concise style expected for scientific writing; click here to see a guide to scientific writing style that you must use for your papers. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to KEEP A COPY of every assignment you hand in until you receive your returned, graded assignment; if I ever don't get something you think you sent, and you can produce your copy immediately, I am very likely to accept it but if you CAN'T produce it I will not take it. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you complete and turn in rough drafts of your papers (due dates for rough drafts are given on the lecture schedule below); these should also be typed, double-spaced (if you have great handwriting I might accept an untyped rough draft but ONLY if it is very easy to read, printed on lined paper with alternate lines left blank so I can make comments between lines.) I will also accept rough drafts submitted electronically -- you can e-mail them to me and I will e-mail comments back to you.
Homework: homework will be due each Wednesday at 8:00 a.m. It must be typed, double spaced (for written assignments) or drawn to scale on graph paper (for graphical assignments). I will be grading homework in class and going over the correct answer with you once it is graded. You will see your grade after class but I will not mark or return homework, so you must bring two copies of the homework to class, one to hand in and one to keep and use to make any necessary corrections. You will hand one in and keep one to correct. Your homework grade is partly an attendance grade so you must be in class ON TIME to turn it in to receive any credit for it. Homework questions, along with additional study questions that I will provide, are designed to show you the kind of material you are expected to know on exams, so they provide practice for exams.
Handing Things In: I do NOT accept late papers or other assignments (computer assignments) unless you have a serious, documented medical or family emergency. If you do have an emergency, see me ASAP to get it approved and see if/when you can hand in your work. Note that "the computer ate my disk" is NOT an acceptable excuse for handing things in late -- save your work regularly and make back-ups; leave time to print things out so that if your printer runs out of ink or the campus printer runs out of toner you'll have time to go somewhere else to print! Graphs must be carefully drawn on standard (not log or semi-log) graph paper.
Attendance Policy: You are expected, and strongly recommended, to attend all class meetings, and to arrive on time. Exams are based primarily on lectures; you are very unlikely to pass exams if you do not attend almost all lectures. If you must miss a class it is YOUR responsibility to find out what you missed and obtain any notes and handouts you have missed from another student in a timely fashion. If you miss class on Wednesdays when we have homework due and class discussions, you will lose homework points (since you can not hand it in for credit if you are not present) and participation points. Since discussion periods are times when the class depends on the participation of all students, attendance during discussions is required. Your grade will drop by one letter grade for each three discussion periods you miss.
Practice Questions: You will be working as groups on practice questions during most Wednesday class periods. The practice questions will be available in advance on the web. You are required to print them out before class and bring them to class; once you have printed them out, keep them; you should bring all practice questions from previous weeks with you on Wednesdays as well as the questions for the current week.
Cheating/ Plagiarism: Anyone caught cheating or plagiarizing material will be assigned the letter grade "F" for the course. Plagiarism includes: quoting or taking information from another source without citing the source of the information, copying someone else's homework or paper, allowing someone to copy your work.
Electronic Devices: CELL PHONES MUST BE TURNED OFF IN CLASS. (if there's an emergency situation where you have to be reachable, you must tell me before class, set the phone to vibrate, not ring, and, if the phone does vibrate, get up and leave the class before answering it.) Do not use other electronic devices (portable CD players, etc.) in class, either. Anyone listening to such a device or answering a cell phone during an exam is getting extra information and is therefore cheating and will receive an automatic F in the course.
Lecture Schedule: The following is the tentative
schedule of lectures and related readings. It includes links to lecture
outlines, the homework due for the week and to the practice questions that
you must bring with you on Wednesday. Lecture dates, lecture topics, lecture
outlines, readings, practice questions, and homework assignments may be
modified, deleted, or added during the semester. Exam dates and other
due dates are very unlikely to change. Papers listed are on reserve in
the library. More papers are likely to be added to the list; when
they are, I will let you know.
| Date | Lecture Topic | Associated Reading |
| 20 Aug | Introduction to Ecology | |
| 22 Aug | The Scientific Method in Ecology; Random and Systematic Error; Statistics in Ecology | Connell, J.H. 1961. The Influence of Interspecific Competition and Other Factors on the Distribution of the Barnacle Chthamalus stellatus. Ecology 42:710-723 |
| No homework or practice questions this week; since we don't have enough to discuss yet I will be lecturing for the full 2 hour period on Weds (sorry, I'll try not to do it again!) | ||
| 27 Aug | The importance of replication (continued from previous lecture); Introduction to the Critique and Term Paper Assignments | |
| 29 Aug | Estimating Population Size | |
| Homework #1: scientific method | ||
| Practice Question Set #1: factors in ecology, scientific method, Connell study, types of error, statistics, sampling | ||
| 03 Sep | LABOR DAY | |
| 05 Sep | Estimating population size (Continued from previous lecture) | |
| Homework #2: sampling | ||
| Practice Question Set #2: Population size estimation | ||
| 07 Sep (Fri) | CRITIQUE ROUGH DRAFTS DUE (Optional but STRONGLY recommended); turn in to me or Biol. Dept. Office by 12:00 noon | |
| 10 Sep | Physiological Ecology | |
| 12 Sep | Physiological Ecology (continued from previous lecture) | |
| 14 Sep (Fri.) | CRITIQUES DUE; turn in to me or Biol. Dept. Office 12:00 noon | |
| Homework #3: physiological ecology | ||
| Practice Question Set #3: Physiological ecology, niches, resources | ||
| 17 Sep | Niches and Resources | |
| 19 Sep | Behavioral Ecology: Group living, Mating systems | |
| Homework #4: Niches and resources | ||
| Practice Question Set #4: Behavioral Ecology | ||
| 24 Sep | Population Growth I: Exponential Growth (not covered on exam 1, although any material I cover to catch up from previous lecture topics will be) | |
| 26 Sep | EXAM 1 Click here for key to exam 1 (to be posted after the exam) | |
| Since there is a test, no homework this week, but there will be two in a future week to make up for this. No discussion, so no practice questions. | ||
| 01 Oct | Population Growth II: Logistic Growth | |
| 03 Oct | Population Growth III: Modifications of Logistic Growth | |
| Homework #5: Exponential Growth | ||
| Practice Question Set #5: Population Growth | ||
| 08 Oct | Factors Regulating Population Size | |
| 10 Oct | Life Tables I | |
| Homework #6: Human
Population Growth -- over Barrett and Odum paper
Homework #7: Logistic Growth |
Barrett, G.W. and E.P. Odum 2000. The twenty-first century: the world at carrying capcity. Bioscience 50: 363-368 | |
| Practice Question Set #6: Logistic Growth and Human Population Growth (from Barrett and Odum paper -- please bring paper to class) | ||
| 12 Oct (Fri.) | COMPUTER ASSIGNMENT 1 DUE; turn in to me or Biol. Dept. Office by 12:00 noon. | |
| 15 Oct | Life Tables II | |
| 17 Oct | Life History Theory | |
| Homework #8: Life tables | ||
| Practice
Questions Set #7: Life Tables
Practice Question Set #8: Life History Theory |
||
| 22 Oct | make-up lecture for students who missed last week because of the conference. | |
| 24 Oct | EXAM 2
Click here to see the key to exam 2 |
|
| Since there is a test, no homework this week, but there will be two next week. No discussion, so no practice questions. | ||
| 29 Oct | Metapopulations I: metapopulation size, recolonization, and extinction | Thomas, C.D. and I. Hanski. 1997. Buttefly metapopulations. Chapter 15 in Metapopulation Biology: Ecology, Genetics, and Evolution (Hanski and Gilpin, eds). Academic Press, New York. |
| 31 Oct | Metapopulations II: Sources and Sinks (continued from previous lecture) | |
| Homework #9: Extinction
in local butterfly populations (from Thomas and Hanski (1997) paper as
well as lecture)
Homework #10: Recolonization and dispersal behavior |
||
| Practice Question Set #8: Metapopulations, including material from Thomas and Hanski (1997) paper so please bring this paper to class. | ||
| 05 Nov | Competition: Models | |
| 07 Nov | Competiton: Studies (from previous lecture) | |
| Homework #11: Sources and sinks | ||
| Practice Question Set #9: Competition | ||
| 12 Nov | Predation: Models; TERM PAPER ABSTRACTS DUE | |
| 14 Nov | Predation: Studies | |
| Homework #12: Competition | ||
| Practice Question Set #10: Predation, Parasitism, and Mutualism | ||
| 16 Nov (Fri) | COMPUTER ASSIGNMENT 2 DUE | |
| 19 Nov | Parasitism and Mutualism (not covered on exam 3, although any material I cover to catch up from previous lecture topics will be) | |
| 21 Nov | Exam 3 | |
| Since there is a test, no homework this week, but there will be two next week. No discussion, so no practice questions. | ||
| 27 Nov | Communities: introduction, species diversity; TERM PAPER ROUGH DRAFTS DUE (Optional; STRONGLY recommended); turn in to me or Biol. Dept. by 12:00 noon. | |
| 29 Nov | Factors regulating community structure | |
| Homework #13: Community study. This will be based on a reading assignment
Homework #14: Species diversity estimates |
||
| Practice Question Set #11: Communities | ||
| 03 Dec | Community stability | |
| 05 Dec | Nature Reserve Design; TERM PAPERS DUE; turn in to me or Biol. Dept. by 12:00 noon. | |
| Homework #15: Community regulation | ||
| Practice Question Set #12: Nature Reserve Design |
Final Exam: Monday, 10 December, 7:45-9:45 a.m.