Ecology Syllabus, Fall 2015 (Biology 482)
Professor: Dr. Vance T. Vredenburg
Office hours: Thursday 2:00PM-4:00PM HH 754; tel (415)-338-7296
Email: vancev@sfsu.edu
Lecture Classroom: Thornton 327; TTH 9:35PM- 10:50AM
Lab Sections: Hensill Hall 233
Shruti Chaukulkar: Wednesday 9:10AM -12:00PM
Alexandra Laurence: Monday 9:10AM -12:00PM and Friday 9:10AM -12:00PM
Format: 3 units class work; 1 unit lab
Learning Objective: Students in this course will understand the fundamental concepts of the
science of ecology at the individual, population, community, ecosystem and global scales.
Textbook: Cain, M.L., W.D. Bowman and S.D. Hacker. 2014. Ecology. Sinauer. (4th Edition)
Evaluation of Student Performance:
Two midterm exams
Final exam
Laboratory assignments
Participation
TOTAL
40%
35%
20%
5%
100%
Disabilities: Students with disabilities who need reasonable accommodations are encouraged to
contact the instructor. The Disability Programs and Resource Center (DPRC) is available to
facilitate the reasonable accommodations process. The DPRC is located in the Student Service
Building and can be reached by telephone (voice/TTY 415-338-2472) or by email
(dprc@sfsu.edu). (http://www.sfsu.edu/~dprc)
Student conduct: Cheating will not be tolerated, any incidents will result in a zero for the
assignment and student(s) will automatically be reported to the department chair. Students are
expected to adhere to the SFSU regulations concerning student conduct (please see the SFSU
Bulletin for details: http://www.sfsu.edu/~vpsa/conduct/standards.html).
Email policy: Feel free to email Dr. Vredenburg, or the graduate teaching assistants, but the
subject line of your email message must be “BIOL 482” or it could be missed.
Contacts: Dr. Vance Vredenburg: vancev@sfsu.edu; John Swenson: swensonjohnd@gmail.com
Erin Elsey: erin.a.elsey@gmail.com
iLearn: Additional course information is posted on iLearn (https://ilearn.sfsu.edu). iLearn uses
your SFSU email address. You may request an SFSU email account, or forward to another
account through http://www.sfsu.edu/email.
Prerequisites: strict enforcement of pre-requisite courses with a grade of C-minus or better is
Department of Biology policy. Pre-requisites shouldn’t be taken concurrently. Biol 230 and 240
are pre-requisites for this course.
SFSU Fall 2014 Deadlines: http://www.sfsu.edu/~admisrec/reg/regsched.html
Approximate Schedule:
Introduction
Lecture 1: Introduction and overview
2: Climate and large-scale ecological patterns
Individual Ecology
3: Physiological ecology
4: Behavioral ecology
5: Refining the niche concept
Population Ecology
6-9: Population growth and regulation
10-12: Species interactions (predation, mutualism, competition)
First Midterm – Thursday October 8, 2015
Community Ecology
13,15,16: Multi-species interactions (complex and indirect)
17-19: The biodiversity paradox – niche theories
20-21: Non-equilibrium theories
Ecosystem Ecology
22: Introduction to ecosystems
23-24: Energy flow through ecosystems
25-27: Nutrient flow
Second Midterm – Thursday, November 5, 2015
Global Ecology
28: Introduction to the topics of global ecology
30: Latitudinal gradient in diversity
31: Island biogeography
32: Neutral theory
33: Landscape ecology and conservation planning
Case Studies
Final Exam – Tuesday Dec 15, 2015; 8:00-10:30; Thornton 327