Ecology and Conservation of Fishes (Biology 329)
University of Virginia, Fall 2003
Course Syllabus
Instructors
Instructor: Mark Kopeny
219 Chemistry Bldg; 924-0677; mtk4m@virginia.edu
Office Hours; by appointment
Teaching Assistant: Linda Aucoin
Ph: 2-5487; lea3q@virginia.edu (Please use email if possible.)
Course Description
Fish Ecology Lab meets every Thursday, from 1:00-5:00. For the first five weeks of the
semester we will hold class in Gilmer 151. During the remaining portion of the semester,
we will be in Gilmer 153. Our meetings will variously involve lab exercises, field
exercises, lectures, discussions and presentations. We will schedule a series of field trips,
beginning next week and extending into November. As students' schedules allow, we
may depart for field trips early or return late. On the first day of class, we will discuss the
possibility of a weekend field trip to explore drainages in southwestern Virginia,
spending the evenings at Mt. Lake Biological Station.
Fish Ecology Lab is a three-credit hour laboratory course with a significant field
component, an expanded version of a similar course I teach at Mt. Lake Biological
Station. Major topics of investigation center on the composition of freshwater fish
assemblages and on the factors that influence distribution of fishes on multiple scales,
from within stream reaches to among basins, including; physical habitat, water quality
and water flow; drainage histories and other zoogeographic processes; morphological,
physiological, and life history characters of fishes; competition, predation and other
biotic interactions; natural disturbance regimes; and anthropogenic impacts. The first
portion of the semester provides an introduction to fish biology and systematics. Biology
201 and 202 are prerequisite.
Over the course of the semester, we will complete as many as eight exercises and
experiments, most of which will involve data collection in the field. The dates for
initiation and completion of these exercises and experiments will depend on the pace of
our field work, which will to some extent be weather dependent. It will often be the case
that you are involved in two or more exercises simultaneously (eg, collecting data for a
new project, while in the same week finishing your analysis for the last project). You
will always have plenty of lead time for any assignment.
The first three exercises are scheduled for the first three meetings, as follows:
August 28; Taxonomy, systematics, and fish identification
September 4; Field methods; surveying for and collecting streamfishes
September 11; Estimating size of smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu)
populations in the south fork of the Shenandoah River.
Dates for the remaining anticipated exercises will be posted as we progress through the
semester. The exercises include:
-Prey base analysis; abundance and distribution of macroinvertebrates
-Fish assemblage composition among and within habitats
-Water quality analysis; physical parameters of fish habitat
-GIS analysis of Rivannah watershed; distributional records by stream ecosystem
type
-Behavioral ecology experiment
Each student will, over the course of the semester, write a review paper on a topic of
current interest that is receiving significant research and/or management attention, and
will give a short presentation on that topic at the end of the semester.
The majority of our time will be spent on projects, but a portion of our time will be
devoted to lectures and discussions. John Kaufman, a fisheries biologist with the
Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, will give a guest lecture later in the
semester on instream flow analysis, and I anticipate at least one other guest speaker over
the course of the semester.
The emphasis in this course is on methods, design and analysis for fish research and
conservation; final grades will be based, accordingly, on the following components:
-Participation/contribution; 25%
-Project reports; 25%
-Quizzes; 25%
-Paper and presentation; 25%