Ecology 03-55-210 Fall 2006

1
Ecology 03-55-210 Fall 2006 First the nuts
and bolts Course Outline Summary - Lectures
Tuesday Thursday 1-220 PM Room 1120
Erie Hall (but youre here already)
Professor Dr. I. Michael Weis Room
202 Biology Building phone ext.
2724 e-mail mweis_at_uwindsor.ca
2
Exam Schedule and Grade Component Weighting 1st
mid-term October 12 12.5 of grade 2nd
mid-term November 9 12.5 of grade In class
clicker questions 10 of grade Lab
quizzes 20 of grade Final Exam Dec. 13,
2006 45 of grade 330 PM
3
Required Texts Ricklefs, R.E. 2001. The Economy
of Nature 5th ed. W.H. Freeman. New
York,N.Y. Alstad, D. 2001. Populus, Models of
Ecology. Required Supplies Ecology Supplement
from Document Services A clicker from the
University Bookstore All further information
about the course is presented in the Ecology
Supplement. The supplement also provides
examples, graphical information covered in
lecture, and problems to permit you to practice
the kinds of questions you may see in the
examinations.
4
Ecology Labs will occur Mondays in two hour
blocks all in the Biology Learning
Centre Section 51.830 1020 AM
52..1030 AM 1220 PM
53..1230 220 PM
54..230 420 PM
55..430 620 PM
56..630 820 PM Please make sure you go
to the right place at the right time!
5
Lecture Topics and Approximate Schedule (This is
an approximate list by week. There is more detail
in the handout (correct dates) and supplement
(incorrect dates) Week of Reading Sept.
7 Introduction History of the subject Chap.1 Sept
. 12 Adaptations of Individuals,
Chap.9,11 Sex and Evolution Sept.
19 Territoriality and Mating Systems,
Chap.12,13 Structure of populations Sept.
26 Demography fecundity, mortality,
Chap.14 methods of calculation Oct.
3 Population dynamics Chap.14,15 Oct.
10 Density dependence and Chap.14
independence Oct. 17 Patterns in life
histories, Chap.10 conservation and
harvesting
6
Oct. 24 Intro to Community Ecology,
Chap.17,18 Predator-prey interactions Oct.
31 Competition between species Chap.19
theory and experiments Nov. 7 Coevolution,
Chap.20-22 Effects of interactions on
communities Nov. 14 Species diversity
Chap.23 patterns and causal
hypotheses Nov. 21 Geographical
Ecology Chap.24 Nov. 28 Biodiversity
Chap.25 extinction and colonization Dec.
5 Applied ecology Chap.26
7
Laboratory Schedule See the supplement. An
introduction to the laboratory and a first
assignment will be given in lab next Monday
(Sept. 11).
8
One Last nut or bolt The university has
adopted a new approach to course evaluation. The
questionnaire is now longer, and asks you
directly about expectations, etc. Here is a
quick look at the new form. Keep it in mind as
the semester progresses. Student Evaluation of
Teaching Form Course _ _-_ _-_ _ _ Section _
_ Instructor ________________________ Instruction
s Please note that the results of this
evaluation will be available to the instructor
only AFTER final course grades have been
submitted. The results may be used by STUDENTS
for aid in course selection INSTRUCTORS for
feedback on teaching ADMINISTRATORS for
decisions on career advancement for instructors
and for program planning. Please complete the
evaluation form honestly and seriously!
9

• Please respond to the statements below for your
  instructor and then for the course, bearing in
  mind
• that there are wide variations in class size and
  subject matter at the University of Windsor.
• (If the statement is not applicable in this
  course, please mark the NA column.)
• The instructor...extremely poor(1) very poor(2)
  poor(3) adequate(4) good(5) very good(6)
  out-standing(7) NA(0)
• 1. presented material in an organized,
  well-planned manner
• 2. used instructional time well
• 3. explained content clearly with
  appropriate use of examples
• 4. was a clear and effective speaker
• 5. communicated enthusiasm and interest in the
  course material
• 6. stimulated your interest in the subject and
  motivated your learning
• 7. attended to students questions and answered
  them clearly and effectively
• 8. was open to students comments and
  suggestions
• 9. was sensitive to students difficulties
• 10. was approachable for additional help
• 11. was accessible to students for individual
  consultation (in office hours, after class, open-
• door, by e-mail, phone)
• 12. The overall effectiveness of the instructor
  was

10
Rate the courseextremely poor very poor poor
adequate good very good out-standing NA 1.
How effective was the course outline in
communicating goals and requirements of the
course? 2. How consistently did the stated
course goals match what was being taught in the
course? 3. How appropriate was the course format
for the subject matter? 4. How well did the
methods of evaluation (e.g., papers, assignments,
tests etc) reflect the subject matter? 5.
How fair was the grading of student work? 6. How
timely was the grading of student work? 7. How
helpful were comments and feedback on student
work? 8. How well did the instructional materials
(readings, audio-visual materials, etc)
facilitate your learning? 9. How well did the
instructional activities (lectures, labs,
tutorials, practica, field trips etc)
facilitate your learning? 10.How reasonable was
the level of difficulty of the course
material? 11. How reasonable was the volume of
the work required in the course? 12.The value of
the overall learning experience was13.Your level
of enthusiasm for taking this course at the time
of initial registration ? low ? medium ?
high 14.Your level of enthusiasm for the
course at the conclusion of the course ?
low ? medium ? high 15.Considering your
experience with this course, would you recommend
it to other students? ? Yes ?No
11

• Statements about yourself This information will
  be used to identify student demographics
• and their effect on the questionnaire results.
  Please answer all questions honestly and to the
• best of your knowledge. Ask the facilitator for
  assistance, if needed.
• 1. Your faculty
• Arts Social Sciences Science Business Education
  Engineering Human Kinetics Law Nursing
• Interfaculty Programs 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 11
  13
• Your status Undergraduate ? 1st year ? 2nd
  year ? 3rd year
• ? 4th year ? 5th year
• or ? B.Ed. student (Fac. of Educ.) ?
  Graduate student (Masters or Ph.D. level)
• ? Law ? other
• 3. Status of this course for you ? required ?
  not required
• 4. Your expected grade level in this course
  ? A ? B ? C ? D ? F
• 5. You are ? Female ? Male

12
What is Ecology?
Ecology is the study of the distributions and
abundances of species, and the causes underlying
those observed distributions and abundances.
How do ecologists study distribution and
abundance? 1) Empirical observations in the
laboratory or in the field. 2) Simulation
models Direct observations are obviously
realistic, but take too long. This course lasts
13 weeks, but processes and organism life cycles
may take years. We can compare current and
historical data to learn about whether species
characteristics have changed, when needed data
are available. However, many such studies are
also expensive, and due to natural environmental
variation, they often fail.
13

• You will gather four types of empirical data in
  labs
• Information from lonely hearts ads to test
  some hypotheses
• about the evolution of mate choice
• Historical data on birth year and length of
  life from cemetary
• (headstone) data
• Effects of leaf extracts on germination of
  lettuce seeds to test for
• allelopathy
• Information about waste generated and energy
  use in your home
• Otherwise, simulation models are cheap, fast to
  run, make it easy
• to test alternative conditions, and can give
  better insight into how
• ecological systems work and how factors affect
  processes.
• You will use a set of models collectively called
  Populus. The laboratories using a computer
  modeling approach will use
• four models
• 2 that model population growth
• 1 that models predator-prey interactions
• 1 that models competition between 2 species
  utilizing the
• same resources

14
Why should you study ecology?
Its a required core course in Biological
Science. (dumb answer!)
It provides vital information that can help us
understand the world around us and conserve
species and resources for future generations.
For example, understanding extinction. Humans
are driving a rate of extinction that parallels
or may exceed rates seen during the last mass
extinction 65 million years ago. But are we
wholly responsible?
15

• Why do species become extinct?
• Habitat destruction
• Excess harvesting
• These are obvious, but only partially correct.
• In the history of life on earth, more than 99.9
  of species
• that have lived on earth are now extinct. Most of
  these
• extinctions occurred before humans evolved, and
  only a
• fraction of the extinctions in recent times are
  directly the
• result of human activity. Even then, humans
  probably only
• dealt the final blow.

16

• The risk of extinction is related to
• population size
• ability to colonize new suitable sites
• reproductive potential
• These are the biological conditions. How do they
  relate to
• the impacts of humans?

17

• Humans destroy or damage areas of habitat. In the
  process
• areas of suitable habitat become fragmented.
• Why does habitat fragmentation cause a reduction
  in
• biological diversity? The reasons lie in the
  effects on
• those biological characteristics
• small fragments only support small populations.
• Those populations are more likely to become
  extinct,
• either due to random chance or failure of
  reproduction.

18

• Locally, we have dramatic evidence of another
  human
• activity that impacts extinction
• International trade, particularly large ships
  that move goods
• from eastern Europe (the Ponto-Caspian region)
  used to dump
• ballast water taken up there in the Great Lakes.
  That water
• included exotic (non-native) species. Among them
  -
• the zebra mussel and small crustacean
  zooplankton.
• Exotic, invading species can drive native
  species
• extinct.
• The zebra mussel has driven most native bivalves
  in the
• Great Lakes and other invaded lakes extinct.
• Zooplankters like Bythotrephes and Cercopagis
  have
• had significant impact on their communities in
  lt10 yrs.

19

• There are international conventions on endangered
  species.
• The CITES treaty bans international trade in
  endangered
• species.
• Canada has recently signed an international
  treaty on
• biological diversity (the Rio convention) the
  RENEW
• (REcovery of Nationally Endangered Wildlife)
  program
• is the result.
• The mandate is
• No endangered species in Canada will be allowed
  to
• become extinct.
• Species that are locally extinct in Canada will
  be
• be re-introduced.
• However, the enabling legislation covers only
  federal lands.

20
In Canada Number of species Mammals Amph
ibians Plants birds reptiles
lichens Extinct 8 1
2 Endangered 19 4 23 Threatened
14 3 30 Vulnerable 39 7
29
21
A short history of Ecology (The longer version
is on the course website. It is a chapter
written originally for an online ecology text in
development.) The term ecology as we now view
it was first used by Ernst Haeckel. Haeckel was
an early and ardent supporter of Darwin's theory
of evolution. In 1866, Haeckel published General
Morphology, a genealogical tree of vertebrates,
that represented the first ordering of life
according to the principles of Darwinism. The
definition of ecology we use is drawn from that
book.
22
The history of ecology can, in one sense, be
suggested to begin with observations of the
ancient philosophers of Egypt and Greece.
However, their observations fall into what we
would now class as "natural history". Aristotle
believed in a "scala naturae", which was a scale
of increasing complexity along which species
could be ordered. Species remain unchanging on
their rungs of this ladder, and evolution does
not occur. Quantification in "ecology" can be
traced to observations collected during the
middle ages, at the time of the Black Plague. In
England, matrons in each parish acted as amateur
coroners, trying to determine the causes of
death. The parish records record the numbers of
births and christenings and the probable causes
of death for each corpse on a regular and an
annual basis.
23
Bills of Mortality and Christening provided the
data for the first calculations of population
growth rate. In 1662, John Graunt published
"Natural and Political Observations", in which
he estimated the doubling time for the
population of London from rates of birth and
death in the bills. He established that more
female babies were born than males, as well as,
on average, longer lifespans for females. Based
on religious Estimates of the time of Adam and
Eve, there had been 87 doublings since. If that
were true, the population would have reached
1026 individuals, or about 100 million per
square centimeter of habitable ground. Even
Graunt knew this could not be, that a pattern of
regular doubling could not continue
indefinitely. This was the first formal
recognition of limits to growth.
24
Regular doubling is called exponential or
geometric increase. This term was coined by Sir
Matthew Hale in 1677. He was made Lord Chief
Justice in 1664 (the equivalent of Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court). Clearly, his interests
and ability extended beyond the law. William
Petty, in "Another Essay in Political
Arithmetic" (1683) established the notion of a
maximum sustainable population size we call the
carrying capacity, K. He was far better known
as an economist.
25
The next major step occurred about a century
later, and provided the first input to
Darwins creative synthesis we call the Theory of
Evolution. It was the recognition by
Thomas Malthus that it was resources
limiting population growth. That populations can
grow exponentially, but resources only in a
linear way was published in his An Essay on the
Principle of Population There were other key
underpinnings to Darwins theory George Cuvier
invented paleology, showed species going
extinct, and suggested the great age of the earth.
26
George Lyell developed and established the idea
of uniformatarianism, the notion that what we
see happening in geology today has been happening
throughout the history of the earth. He also
persuaded Darwin to finally publish the
theory. James Hutton found that the sedimentary
rock of the earths surface was laid down in a
sequence of layers, which reinforced ideas about
the age of the earth, and explained some of
Darwins observations on the slopes of
the Andes. Putting all this together, Darwin
hypothesized Natural Selection.
27
The final impetus for Darwin to publish came from
the independent development of the same basic
hypothesis by Alfred Russell Wallace. He
collected insects, first in the Amazon basin,
then in Indonesia. The paper that he developed
from those collections was On the Tendency of
Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the
Original Type. That wasnt all he did. He also
was the first to develop what we now
call Biogeography. He is horribly
under- appreciated in the history of our
subject. To get further, there had to be
developments in genetics.
28
In genetics the basic figures are well-known
Gregor Mendel, and then to understand the
importance of sex and sex chromosomes, Thomas
Hunt Morgan. Morgan won a Nobel Prize for
establishing the chromosomal mechanism of
inheritance in fruit flies.
Mathematical models used in ecology developed
quite independently of the basic biology. The
logistic was developed by a French mathematician,
Pierre Verhulst, but was not accepted until early
in the 20th century.
29
It was not Verhulst who brought the logistic into
ecology, but A demographer, Raymond Pearl,
studying the history of population growth in the
U.S. To create a model (an equation) fitting the
growth pattern, he re-discovered Verhulsts
logistic. We now have most of the basics of
ecological thought established, but there is
one more person to mention. He is G. Evelyn
Hutchinson. It is Hutchinson whose ideas are key
to a modern view of community ecology. Hes the
one responsible for our modern view of the
niche, by means of whch we learn how species
fit together in communities. So, in his honor,
one last picture
30
The ecologists in the Biological Sciences Dept.
were mostly aquatic in orientation (now there
are about as many behavioural scientists).
Hutchinson wrote the seminal, 3-volume work, A
Treatise on Limnology, that is, at some level,
the basis for most of the aquatic ecologists
work. Scientists also have fun with
intellectual pedigrees hes my intellectual
great grandfather.