Short Course Description
This course will concentrate on understanding the processes structuring ecological communities. Each class will be dedicated to understanding theoretical consideration and applying these to practical problems. From a theoretical perspective, emphasis will be placed on species coexistence, community change and the influence of space and scale on patterns and processes. Students will apply this knowledge to applied, real-world problems in ecology and conservation.
There are three main goals of this course:
1. Learn the fundamental patterns in community ecology and the underlying structuring forces.
2. Gain experience with mathematical models used to describe communities.
3. Increase the student?s skill in applying theoretical models to real world problems
Topics to be covered include: competition, predator-prey dynamics, facilitation, succession, niche-based versus neutral community assembly, species abundance distributions, species area relationships, metacommunities.
Student requirements:
Student must take a basic Ecology course to participate.
Students are expected to participate in all class. A weekly quiz will test home reading.
Full Syllabus
