Transcript Ground Rules, exams, etc. (no “make up” exams)

Biology 373 – Ecology
Professor: Eric R. Pianka
An introduction to ecology, the study of relationships among organisms and
between organisms and their environment; adaptations, population,
communities, and ecosystems. Includes both plants and animals and both
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Three lecture hours and one discussion hour
a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Biology 325 or 325H with a grade of at
least C.
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/bio373/
Download Syllabus from above site
Biology 373 – Ecology
Professor: Eric R. Pianka
Office: Patterson 125, Mon., Fri. 1-2 PM
471-7472, [email protected]
Instructor and Course Websites:
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/bio373/
Download Syllabus from above site
Teaching Assistant:
Office: Patterson
Office Hours:
[email protected]
Discussion Sections
Wednesday 10-11
Wednesday 11-12
Friday 9-10
Friday 10-11
(Will not meet Friday, start next week)
Pianka, Evolutionary Ecology, 6th or 7th editions
You can also read these on line at Blackboard’s
“Course Documents”
Please Read
Chapter 1
Chapter 8
“Scientific Methods”
“Natural Selection”
[Also, please look over Chapters 2 through 7 to make
certain you are familiar with that background material]
For this generation,
who must confront the
shortsightedness of their ancestors . . .
Suggested Additional Reading
An Illustrated Guide
to Theoretical Ecology
Case, An Illustrated Guide to
Theoretical Ecology
(read pp. 79-100)
Ted J. Case
Gotelli, A Primer of Ecology (pp. 2-85)
Ginzburg and Golenberg, Lectures in Theoretical
Population Biology (read pp. 1-5 and 193-219)
Exams:
First Exam: 4 Oct.
Second Exam: 1 Nov.
Third Exam: 6 Dec.
Final Exam: 17 December, 2-5 PM
Best 2 of 3 = 50% + Final 50%
[No “Make Up” Exams!]
Grades:
Three hour exams
4 Oct.
1 Nov.
>
Best 2 of 3 = 50%
6 Dec.
Final 50% : 17 December, 2-5 PM
+/- Grading System will be used
[No “Make Up” Exams!]
Politicians and other advertisers equate ecology
with “beer cans and pollution” and environment
with “clean air and clean water,” in short the
human environment. Anthropocentric.
All other organisms have environments, too.
Environment is defined as all the physical and
biotic factors impinging upon a particular
organismic unit, as well as everything affected
by that organismic unit.
An organismic unit could be an individual, a
population, or even all of the organisms living
together in a particular ecosystem, an entire
community.
These constitute different levels of organization in
the biological hierarchy of life.
Ecology is defined as the study of the interactions
between organisms and their environments.
Ecology requires wild organisms in the natural
environments within which they evolved and to
which they have become adapted.
Ecology requires wild organisms in the natural
environments within which they evolved and to
which they have become adapted.
Once, we were surrounded by wilderness
and wild animals, now we surround them.
Anthropocentrism — humans see themselves at
the center of the universe.
What good are rattlesnakes?
Snakes in Cages
“Love” in Vials
Captive organisms are out of context, they don’t have a
natural environment (they might as well be dead as far
as an ecologist is concerned)
Henry David Thoreau (1854)
Walden “Book of Life” metaphor
Holmes Rolston (1985) “Vanishing Book of Life”
Humans are just beginning to be able to read it, but its
pages are tattered and torn, and entire chapters have been
ripped out. Need to save as much as possible (conservation
biology), but also must READ it (ecology) before it is
gone. Other Earthlings have a right to exist, too.
Holmes Rolston
Hierarchical Organization of the Biological Sciences
<—————— Integrative Biology——————————>
Hierarchical Organization of the Biological Sciences
Please go to course website and read NY Times: “Depth of Time” article
Also, please read Nee’s one page commentary in Nature (downloadable pdf)
Daniel T. Haydon
Time and Space Scaling in Ecology
Daily movements (home range, territory)
Dispersal events (immigration, emigration)
Colonization of new areas and habitats
Geographic range expansion or contraction
Geographical patterns of diversity
Daniel R. Brooks
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Models may be verbal, graphical, or mathematical
Model: mere “caricatures of nature”
(all models are imperfect)
Trade offs in construction of m odels
precision
generality
realism