BIOL 370
Ecology and Evolution
Fall 2013
Dyer
Ecology and Evolution
Fall 2013
BIOL 370W (4 credit hours)
Instructor: Dr. Andrew Dyer
Phone: 641-3443
Office: SBDG 101E
email: andyd@usca.edu
Lecture:
Tues-Thurs 10:50-12:05 Sciences 107
Lab:
Monday
1:00-3:40
Sciences 107
Office hours: before lecture or by appointment
Course text
1. Raven & Johnson et al. Biology 7th or 8th or 9th ed.
2. Braude & Low 2010, An Introduction to Methods and Models in Ecology
3. McMillan 2006, Writing Papers in the Biological Sciences 4th ed.
Prerequisites
All students must have taken and passed ABIO 122 and AMTH 111 (or their equivalents). If you have
not, don’t take it personally when I ask you to drop the class.
Course description
This course is intended as an introduction to the theoretical and practical concepts of ecology and evolution for
biology majors with no previous experience in these two fields.
* Emphasis will be placed on understanding and synthesis of concepts and less on memorization of facts.
* Data analysis will be a common activity.
* Scientific papers will be assigned as reading and will include the writing of good quality essays.
* Class projects will also require data analysis and report writing.
* Information will be presented in the form of lectures, discussions, reading assignments, group reports, and
laboratory exercises.
* This course is a Writing Intensive and writing assignments will be a large component of the grading.
Objectives
• To acquaint the student with the basic evolutionary principles governing the processes of natural selection
and adaptation, and ecological principles describing the regulation of plant and animal abundance and
distribution.
• To acquaint the student with the current understanding of the mechanisms governing ecological interactions
among organisms and the close association between evolutionary and ecological principles and theory.
• To improve the students’ ability to recognize, identify and analyze evolutionary and ecological processes in
the natural world.
• To improve the student’s ability to collect and analyze data and present it in a meaningful way.
Competencies
By the end of this course, the student will have demonstrated the ability to
• Discuss basic evolutionary and ecological principles, and understand contemporary examples that illustrate
the basic principles.
• Describe potential mechanisms by which organisms interact and compete for resources in nature.
• Describe basic methods for quantifying interactions between organisms and their environment whether in
the laboratory or in the field and through statistical analysis.
• Prepare and present data analysis as an oral presentation.
Writing Intensive Courses
WI courses are designed to improve you writing skills and that can only be accomplished through practice and
revision. In this course, almost every assignment will be written: quizzes, reports, essays, and tests. ON a
couple of the essays assignments, there will be opportunities for revisions for more credit.
These kinds of assignments are graded subjectively, that is, I make decisions about the quality of the writing and
grade accordingly. I judge them according to quality of thought, quality of writing, and how much effort I think
went into them. Therefore, spelling, grammar, organization, and thoughtfulness count as does the ability
to tie together different concepts from class. If you are not strong in grammar, you should consider using the
Writing Room before turning in assignments. On many assignments, such as essay summaries of papers, I grade
with a rubric and grammar and language count as no more than 30%.
For most take-home writing assignments, I will ask for electronic versions sent to my email at
AndyD@usca.edu. I will make an effort to return graded assignments within a week and always with
comments. I welcome your comments in return and you are always invited to discuss your answers with me.
Laboratory description
Often lab groups will have to go outside to collect data and may require some walking around campus. This
session will be used for exploratory labs, formal and informal discussion of lecture, text, and supplementary
material, individual and group investigations and presentations.
Exam dates
Lecture exams will be given on or about Sept. 12, Oct 8, Nov. 7.
The final exam will be given at 8:00 am on Tuesday, December 10
Exams will be mostly short answer/essay questions and will focus on conceptual understanding, not facts and
details.
Absences
Try to avoid them. It will be hard to understand what is going on if you have missed the previous session. If
there are emergency reasons for missing a day, contact Dr. Dyer unless absolutely unavoidable in which case
there better be documentation of the reason. If you don’t inform me of a miss before or the day of the absence, I
will allow make-up work at my discretion. However, regardless of the reason for the missed class, quizzes
cannot be made up. If you miss more than 70% of the lectures and/or 4 labs, you will fail the class.
Points (approximate and subject to change)
Quizzes (16), Exams (4)
Labs, write-ups, papers
~500
~500
~1000 pts
Quizzes are given in the first 5 minutes of class. There are no make-up quizzes and if you’re late, you miss it.
Tests can only be made up with advance notice of the absence.
Late assignments lose 10% per day, but they continue to have value, so turn them in even if they’re late.
Grades are calculated on a 10 pt scale: A>90%, B>80%, C>70%.
Additional comments
1. If you are having difficulty with any aspect of this course, please come see me as soon as possible. If my
regular office hours conflict with your schedule, you can make an appointment to see me at a more convenient
time.
2. If you have a physical, psychological, and/or learning disability that might affect your performance in this class,
please contact the Office of Disability Services, B&E 134, (803) 643-6816, as soon as possible. The Office of
Disability Services will determine appropriate accommodations based on medical documentation.
3. You will be expected to endorse the following Honor Pledge on every exam:
On my honor as a University of South Carolina Aiken student, I have neither given nor received
any unauthorized aid in this assignment/examination. To the best of my knowledge, I am not in
violation of academic honesty.
Infractions of this honor pledge are taken very seriously. Any evidence of plagiarism will result in a formal
report to the Vice Chancellor. Make sure you understand ALL of the forms of plagiarism (see the section
below).
COMPUTER USE AND EMAIL
You must have a functioning email address. I prefer written assignments to be turned in as Word documents via
email. Laboratory reports often require the use of a computer. You must be able to log on to the USCA
computer system in order to accomplish many laboratory exercises.
All official class communications, including class announcements, are made to USCA email accounts. Check
your USCA email account on a regular basis and use this account for communication with the instructor. In
order to protect the privacy of the student, the instructor will not reply to emails sent from non-USCA accounts
(e.g., Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.). Also, because of federal law, no grades or scores can be communicated by phone
or email; you must come to the instructor’s office.
CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR
It is the instructor’s right to remove from the classroom any student who disrupts or disturbs the proceeding of
the class. Disruption of the class includes but is not limited to the use of any portable electronic devices,
including cell phones, MP3 players, and iPods. unless prior approval has been given to a student or unless
required for the course. In extreme cases the faculty member can request assistance from University Police. If
the student who has been ejected causes similar disturbances in subsequent meetings of the class, he/she may be
denied admittance to the class for the remainder of the semester and assigned a grade of F.
A short but growing note about PLAGIARISM
Any and all work turned in for credit is assumed to be your work and the product of your brain and your brain
alone. Every word in every sentence is your work. Work can be considered plagiarism even if it is not exact
copying. My advice is “don’t make me look” because when I get suspicious enough to look, I usually find. For
your information, it is plagiarism….
*if you fail to cite a reference after giving a factual statement;
*if you fail to use quotation marks (and I do not allow quoting in science papers);
*if you rephrase someone else’s work or merely change a few words;
*if you have the same order and form of sentences as the source material;
*if you consistently mis-cite or mis-use cites in a way that suggests intentional avoidance of detection;
*if you and a lab partner work together and turn in work that is substantially the same.
If a “draft” of a paper has any of the above problems, it is still plagiarism.
If I cannot tell who produced a piece of work, no credit will be assigned.
If the references given are not accessible to the instructor, no credit will be given. Therefore, if you use obscure
or unusual references, it is your responsibility to turn in a copy with the assignment or make it available to me.
Be aware that what was allowed in high school does not necessarily apply at USCA. If there is anything about
the above statements that are not clear, don’t wait until an assignment is due to find out more.
Many students believe that having no more than three consecutive words from an original source will fool the
electronic programs that detect plagiarism. I don’t use those programs; I read the papers that are given in the
reference list and compare them to the student’s work. If I find any of the problems listed above, there will be no
first warning. There is no latitude given because there is no excuse for plagiarism.
Therefore, if I find any work that is too similar to other work, either in the class or out of the class, please
understand that I have no options but to follow the rules as outlined in the USCA Faculty Manual. The
student(s) involved will be summoned to my office, the situation will be explained, there will be no options for
“redoing” the work, a zero will be given to the assignment, and a formal letter will be sent to the student and to
the Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs documenting the situation. As with all academic issues,
there is an avenue for appeal (detailed in the USCA Student Handbook), but it is not with me.