| Vegetation Ecology | Requirements | Dr. Evan Weiher |
In this course, I see course content (i.e. the ideas, concepts, and methods) as a small part of what this course is intended to be about.
While I am keenly interested in Vegetation Ecology, you may or may not be.
While I expect you to learn a great deal about Vegetation Ecology, I am more interested in the broad goals of your education.
Therefore, we will place a rather large emphasis on your ability to think critically and analytically.
We will accomplish this by reading, outlining, and discussing a variety of papers from the primary and secondary literature and by refocusing course content on the general issue of making sense of complexity. You will be introduced to multivariate analysis, in order to simplify and describe complex data, and how complex data can be summarized into indices that capture key attributes. We will address issues regarding experimentation as a limited way of assessing causation, and then introduce concepts for untangling complex dependency relationships. We also attempt to understand some mechanistic mathematical models in order to work our math skills.
Another broad goal is your own personal growth.
During the first part of the semester, we will visit some nice examples of native vegetation.
I hope that you will enjoy and remember these trips.
Sometimes, these field trips can be transformative, in that the trip might change how you see the world or yourself.
Indeed, perhaps this course might spark a new interest. Or it might quench a passing one.
In any case, I hope that you will continue to actively think about your own growth during this semester.
Lecture attendance policy: Exams: Please don't miss an exam. Make-up exams will be given only for officially
excused absences. Lecture participation: Outlines: Bibliography:
Your bibliography must be organized into distinct sections with headings that clearly explain the organizational structure. Think of the headings as topic sentences and the sections as paragraphs.
Lab::
The Final Exam is cumulative. If your score on the final exam is
greater than your average exam score, then your exam scores will be replaced by
your final exam score. This means you can fail every exam and probably earn an A by
getting an A on the final. If you are content with your exam scores, you may choose to skip the comprehensive final. In this case, your average exam score will be used as your final exam score.
Academic honesty versus misconduct. In order to help ensure academic honesty, you will be asked to sign each exam and the paper to attest that you have
been academically honest and ethical.
This course helps meet the following liberal education goals:
100
Exam 1
100
Exam 2
100
Exam 3
50
Outlines / Participation
50
Presentation
50
Annotated Bibliography
50
Lab Attendance and Participation
200
Final Exam
700
total
Lecture attendance is not required, but you may lose points for missing class
because of lost participation points.
will include a mixture of short answers and longer essays
In order to pass, you must have an exam score of at least 60%.
In lecture, you will be called on repeatedly
during the semester. The questions will relate to the assigned readings
and your outline of each reading. Points will assigned using the following
scheme:
0 Absent
1 Present, but unprepared
2 Any kind of answer that shows some
thought and effort
3 An incredibly great answer
Your participation score will be based on the number of times you are called on times two, as a maximum possible score (then rescaled to 50 total points maximum).
For each paper, there will be a standing assignment to outline the paper and
answer some questions about it. At the start of class the outlines will be
quickly checked.
Scientific scholarship requires that you read, understand, and be able to synthesize information from the primary literature. In order to exercise these skills, you will conduct a literature search and create an annotated bibiliography. It will include at least 20 papers from the recent primary literature that address a single topic, such as plant competition, forest conservation, or dispersal limitation. For each paper you will write a 1 - 3 sentence summary of its main points and include the proper citation. You will also include the pdf file of each paper.
Lab attendance and participation is required. Labs may not be made up.
(1) knowledge of the natural world
(2) critical and creative thinking
(3) effective communicaiton
(6) integrative learning