Fundamentals of
Ecology
Biology/Ecology/ENST 112
What?
Second
course in ecology, follows 54
New course – work in progress
Basic ideas and concepts
Skills and experiences
You
have an opportunity to influence
the content!
Who?
Robert Peet
Lee Anne Jacobs
Brooke Wheeler
Advanced undergraduates and beginning
graduate students
2 sophomores, 8 juniors, 16 seniors, 6
graduate students
Why are you here?
Need a 100-level elective?
The course is required?
Wish stronger background for
research?
Interested in a career in ecology?
Wish to be an informed citizen?
A guided tour of the website
http://www.bio.unc.edu/faculty/peet/lab/courses/Biol122
Syllabus
Lecture outlines, PowerPoints, readings
Laboratory materials
Resources
Roster
Gradebook
Exams
Announcements
Grades
20%
20%
20%
20%
20%
Exam 1
Exam 2
Final Exam
Laboratory
Two written assignments
Lecture organization
Physical
environment & physiological
ecology
Ecosystems
Populations
Population interactions
Communities
Macroecology
Texts and Readings
Begon,
Townsend & Harper 2006
– Suggested chapters
– Required sections
Gotelli
2001
Original papers for Case Studies
Example papers – old and new
Laboratory
Field
experience
Skills & tools
Quantitative methods
Issues:
Computers
Fieldtrips
What is Ecology
Haeckel 1863. "the study of all the
complex interrelationships referred to by
Darwin as the conditions of the struggle
for existence, or the economy of nature."
Ecology is the scientific study of the
interrelationships between organisms, and
between organisms and their environment
Ecology is the sociology and economics of
animals and plants
Role of Ecology
Understanding
nature
– "The ecological theater and the
evolutionary play."
– "Nothing in biology makes sense except
in the light of evolution.“
– very little about evolution makes sense
except in the light of ecology."
Managing
nature
Ecology as a science
“… ecology is a science of contingent
generalizations, where future trends
depend (much more than in the
physical sciences) on past history
and on the environmental and
biological setting.” Robert May –
1986
Ecology as a science
Biology is a study of diversity, be it at
the level of species or of molecules
There are endless special cases
Ecology and Evolution are more
uncertain, and thus more challenging
than many areas of science.
you cannot deduce biology from first
principles.
What is noise to a physicist is music
to a biologist.
Scientific process
Observation
and description
Patterns and hypothesis
Tests and revision
Explanation and understanding
Prediction and extrapolation
Control
Complexity and case studies
Levels of organization
Organisms
Populations
Communities
Landscapes
The
Biosphere
Ecosystem
perspectives
Scale perspectives
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