BIOL 355: Ecology
Fall 2011
This is the syllabus. It spells out what this course entails and what will be expected of
students in the course. Please read it carefully. You will need to refer to this guide often.
In particular, you should re-read several times over the semester the advice about
ecological thinking and the criteria for evaluation.
Two things to note:
As a student at Binghamton University, you are bound by the rules and regulations of the
University, which includes an honor code. It is expected that any work that is assigned to
you as an individual will be completed by you alone and, thus, represent your knowledge
and abilities. You can find details about that in the Binghamton University Student
Handbook. In assignments where you have group work, it is expected that you will
participate to the best of your ability and, thus, the group work represents a true team
effort.
This course is designed to meet the intellectual goals and standards of the university. If you
don’t like the policies of this course, you have the option of dropping it and, thus, making
room for others who want to take the course.
Required purchases:
Ecology: Concepts & Applications – Manual Molles 5th edition (paperback textbook)
Instructor: Prof. Weixing Zhu
Phone: 777-3218, e-mail: wxzhu@binghamton.edu
Class hours and location: Tu, Th 11:40-1:05, S1-149
Office hours: Tu, Th: 2:00-3:00 pm (S3-391)
TA: Miranda Kearney, e-mail: mkearne1@binghamton.edu
Office hours: TBA (S3-359)
All class notes and assigned reading materials are available on BU Blackboard.
TENTATIVE LECTURE SCHEDULE FOR ECOLOGY 355 FALL 2011
(Check for updated reading assignment on Blackboard)
Date
Topics covered
Aug 30
Sept 1
Sept 6
Sept 8
Sept 13
Sept 15
Sept 20
Sept 20-22
Introduction; What is ecology? Scientific methods
Ch 1
EDF: Lyme disease, Ticks, Deer, Oak, and Others
Ch 2
EDF Species interactions and nutrient cycling
PDF
EDF: Climate and Climate change
Ch 2, PDF
EDF: Species change and mycorrhizae symbiosis
EDF: Soil, and Land Fragmentation
Ch 2, 21
EDF: Nutrient, Acid rain, and Watershed processes
Internet, PDF
Ind & Group Quiz I in the evening
Essay I on EDF and Human relations due 12:00 noon Friday
Sept 22
Sept 27
Oct 4
Oct 6
Oct 11
Oct 13
Oct 18
Oct 20
Oct 25
Oct 27
Nov 1
Nov 3
Nov 8
Nov 10
Nov 8-10
Nov 15
Nov 17
Nov 22
Nov 24
Nov 29
Dec 1
Dec 6
Dec 8
Temperature relations
Water relations
Energy and Nutrient relations
Population distribution
Population Growth
Human population growth
Competition
Exam I
Mutualism
Herbivory and Predation
Species diversity and abundance
Food web structure and trophic dynamics
Primary production and decomposition
Nutrient cycling
Ind & Group Quiz II in the evening
Succession
Everglades – species interactions
Everglades – abiotic environment
Happy Thanksgiving!
Everglades – restoration
Everglades – an integrated ecosystem revisited
Essay II on Everglades due 12:00 noon Friday
Global ecological changes: an synthesis
Global change continued
Dec 13
EXAM II
TBA
How to use the textbook and other readings:
1) Complete reading assignments before class! Chapters (Ch #) refer to Molles’ Ecology.
2) Review “Summary Concepts” and “Review Questions” at each of Molles’ chapters.
Reading Assignment
Ch 4
Ch 5
Ch 6
Ch 9
Ch 10, 11
Ch 11, PDF
Ch. 13
Ch 15
Ch 14
Ch 16
Ch 17
Ch 18
Ch 19
Ch 20
PDF
Ch 23
Ch 23, PDF
3) Those assignments labeled as “Internet” will involve you getting online and reading articles I prescribe and/or
simply investigating the information on your own. I will announce these details before the day they are to
be read. Those labeled as “PDF” will come as the PDF articles loaded to the Blackboard.
The key concept of content
The guiding question throughout the course is: “What is the relationship between organisms and their environment?”
To answer that, we will need to break that question into more specific sub-questions. The course will emphasize
three major areas: 1. factors regulating species distribution and abundance, 2. factors regulating pools and fluxes of
energy and materials in ecosystems, and 3. human impact on species and ecosystems. We will start with a familiar
ecosystem, the eastern deciduous forest (the basic ecosystem in New York State) in the temperate climate zone of
North America, then get into specific topics addressing the relationship between organisms and their environment.
The key concept of instruction
This course is entirely concerned with the development of ecological and scientific thinking. Most people do not
develop their scientific thinking. Another way of saying that is most people do not know how to discipline their
thinking. Most of their ideas about the physical world have come into their minds without their having thought
about them. They unconsciously pick up what the people around them said and what is on television or in the
movies. They are products of forces that they did not choose and they reflect those forces without understanding
them.
To become a scientific thinker is to reverse that process, by learning to practice skills that enable one to take charge
of the ideas one has about the physical world. It is to think consciously and deliberately and skillfully about the
world. It is to develop a mind that is analogous to the body of a physically fit person.
Whenever you are doing a task in or for this course, ask yourself: “Would an independent observer watching me
conclude that I am engaged in taking charge of my mind and of my ideas about the physical world, or would the
observer conclude that I am merely going through the motions of doing the assignment, for example, by trying to
succeed via rote memorization?”
General plan for the course
The class periods will focus on practice and lecture. They will emphasize your figuring out things about the
physical world using your own mind, rather than simply memorizing what is in the textbook. On a typical class day,
you will be in small groups practicing “disciplined scientific” thinking. You will be responsible regularly for
assessing your own work using criteria and standards discussed in class.
For every class period, you will read sections of the textbook and sometimes additional reading assignment. You
will also be responsible for completing a variety of online surveys, meeting in small groups outside of class to
complete assignments, take quizzes, and give presentations.
A word about the time requirements outside of class
This course is worth four credits. However, in an effort to provide you with a greater flexibility in your schedule,
we will have just three hours of lecture each week. Two discussion sections were set up to provide common space
and time slots for group activities but you are not required to meet at that time and place. As a result, you will be
required to spend more hours outside of the classroom doing work for this class than you would for a typical upperlevel 4-credit Biology class. This course style has a large number of benefits. As stated above, it provides you with
a greater flexibility in your school week because your work gets done largely based on your and your group’s
schedules. Additionally, you will have a better understanding of the course material at the end of the semester, and
beyond. Typical course formats (lectures alone, or with labs and discussions) have a large percentage of students
that only think about the course-work during the times they are in the classroom. However, in this course, you will
be thinking about the material over a wider timeframe per day, and, thus, have a greater potential of retaining the
material. Another benefit to having you do much of the work on your own is that you will not have as much
opportunity to passively accept the material from me. Instead, you will have to come up with many of the answers
on your own. This process of investigation guarantees that you will retain more information long after the semester
is over.
Small groups
Each student will be randomly assigned to a small group of 4-5 students according to their sections. During the
course of the semester, small groups will be responsible for meeting to fulfill assignments, work on and give oral
presentations, and take group quizzes.
The reason that we have you work in groups is because research shows that students who work in groups, in
which they are held accountable to both themselves and their group, get better grades, learn more about the
material, improve team-working skills and enjoy the course more.
A comment about group work: Group work is part of “active, skilled participation”. Once in awhile, a group has a
problem, usually because a member is doing more or less than his/her fair share of the work. In the real world (e.g.,
when you graduate), you will usually have to work with others in one way or another. Part of learning how to work
with others is solving the problem of group work, such as uneven work-load. Try to solve your group problems
within your group. Do this as soon as you perceive a problem. Usually a frank yet positively constructive
discussion of how each person feels can set the stage for resolving the problem. If the problem persists even after
you have tried various solutions, notify the teaching assistant of the course to arrange a group meeting to work out
the problem. If and when all else fails, a student who refuses to pull his/her weight can be “fired” by unanimous
consent of the rest of the group, and a student who consistently does most of the work can quit. However, in either
case, that student must find another group willing to let him/her join. Note that this is a hypothetical situation; we
have never had this happen!
Grading
Assignment
Attendance and Participation
Essay (5% for paper and 3% for concept map = 8% each)
2 Individual-and-group quizzes (5% for indiv+3% for group=8% for each)
Peer evaluation
Midterm Exam
Final Exam
Total percent
12%
16%
16%
6%
20%
30%
.
Attendance and Participation
Students are expected to attend every lecture and meeting outside of class (i.e. small group assignments, and
quizzes). I will take attendance a few times across the semester. Students that attend class regularly perform better
on assignments and exams, and, as a result, get better overall grades, than those that do not regularly attend.
Students will also be required to participate in a variety of online surveys across the semester. Although these
surveys will not be graded, I will have access to a list of names of those that completed the surveys. I will count this
participation toward the overall Attendance and Participation grade.
Essay
The essay assignment is to be written by yourself and submitted to the digital drop box in Blackboard by 12:00 noon
on the day it is due.
If you are to develop as a thinker, you will need to develop as a writer as well. To develop as a writer, you must
impose on yourself the same standards that good writers impose on themselves.
The key question that we will ask when we are reading your work is “What specifically does this person’s writing
demonstrate about his/her ability to reason?”
So here are some points to keep in mind:


When you write sentences that can be interpreted in different ways, you indicate that you are thinking vaguely.
Therefore, strive to make clear precisely what you mean.
When you do not give concrete examples, you demonstrate that you do not know how to clarify your thought.
Therefore, strive to give examples and illustrations to clarify your meaning.



When you do not use appropriate transitional words and critical vocabulary to make clear the logical relations
among your sentences, you indicate a lack of logic in your thought. Therefore, make sure that your sentences
and paragraphs have a logical flow.
When you do not analyze key concepts and in a logical way, your weak analysis is apparent. Therefore, analyze
key concepts where appropriate.
When you do not make clear the issue or question, you reveal a lack of intellectual discipline. Therefore, you
need to clarify the question and stick to it.
When you make sweeping judgments without sufficient analysis, you demonstrate
intellectual ignorance. Therefore, you should show that you have considered all reasonable
ways of looking at the question.
Peer evaluation
At the end of the course, we will ask you to evaluate your regular partners in your group. Your partners’ evaluation
of how much you contributed to their learning and performance and how well you contributed to the group’s
functioning well is worth 6% of your grade. There are no bonus points in this course, so this is an easy way to
ensure that you get a full 6%, by being a great partner.
Individual-and-group quizzes
The quizzes are not picky or tricky. If you understand the concepts, the quizzes are quite straightforward. An
individual-and-group quiz is a quiz that an individual takes and then retakes as a group effort. The individual score
and the group score are added to determine the final score for each person. It is to your advantage to study well so
that your individual score is high. It is to your advantage to help the group because a high group score helps your
final score. If you routinely let your group down, you can bet that will be reflected in the peer evaluations.
There will be two quizzes, which is 16% of your grade. Because the quizzes are a kind of class participation and
discussion, there are NO make-up quizzes.
Exams
There will be two in-class exams during the semester. Exams will be multiple choice and take almost all of a class
period. Questions for exams will be a mix of straight forward facts and application of the concepts. The 2nd exam
is the final exam for this course.
Overall grades
Grading is NOT on the curve. In theory, everyone could get an A, or an F. Thus, you are not competing against
each other; you gain by helping others understand the content and issues who may in turn help you.
General criteria for grades, other than exams and quizzes, thus criteria for course in general:
A = the essence of A-level work is excellence, with no major weaknesses
A-level work demonstrates real achievement in grasping what ecological thinking is, along with clear development
of a range of specific ecological thinking skills or abilities. The work at the end of the course is, on the whole, clear,
precise and well reasoned, with only occasional lapses into weak reasoning. In A-level work, ecological thinking
terms and distinctions are used effectively. The work demonstrates a mind beginning to take charge of its own
ideas, assumptions, inferences and intellectual processes. The A-level student usually analyzes issues clearly and
precisely, usually formulates information clearly, usually distinguishes the relevant from the irrelevant, usually
recognizes key questionable assumptions, usually clarifies key concepts effectively, typically uses language in
keeping with educated usage, frequently identifies relevant competing points of view, and shows a general tendency
to reason carefully from clearly stated premises, as well as noticeable sensitivity to important implications and
consequences. A-level work displays excellent reasoning and problem-solving skills. The A student’s work is
consistently at a high level of intellectual excellence.
B = the essence of B-level work is that it demonstrates more strengths than weaknesses and is more consistent in
high level performance than C-level work.
C = the essence of C-level work is that it demonstrates more than a minimal level of skill and knowledge, but it is
also inconsistent, with as many weaknesses as strengths.
D = the essence of D-level work is that it demonstrates only a minimal level of understanding and skill in ecological
thinking.
F = the essence of F-level work is that the student demonstrated a pattern of unscientific thinking and/or failed to do
the required work of the course.
As grades for individual tasks are completed, they will be posted on Blackboard. Grades will be posted as soon as
possible after each assignment is completed. Some grades, however, will likely be posted much quicker than others.
For example, grades for exams, which are multiple choice, and, thus graded by computer, will likely be posted more
quickly than grades for the essay, which is graded by hand.
At this point, it should be obvious to you that the way to do well in this course is to focus on improving your
performance as a scientific thinker, by increasing your strengths and decreasing your weaknesses. If you are just
looking for a grade, you are more likely to miss the mark.