BIOLOGY 491.005 COMMUNITY ECOLOGY Advanced discussion and literature review of critical topics in community ecology. These will include the nature of communities, competition, predation, mutualism, temporal and spatial influences, diversity and applications.

Dr. Evan Weiher
353 Phillips
weiher@uwec.edu

Lectures/Discussions: 11 a.m. - 12 noon  Monday Wednesday Friday   Schneider 105
Textbook: Morin, P.J. 1999. Community Ecology. Blackwell.

week 1
Mon Jan 26	overview
Wed Jan 28	communities (chapter 1)
Fri Jan 30	Gleason, H.A. 1926. The individualistic concept of the plant association. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 53: 7-26. Collins, S., S.M. Glenn, and D.W. Roberts. 1993. The hierarchical continuum concept. Journal of Vegetation Science 4: 149-156.
week 2
Mon Feb 2	Competition: mechanisms, models, and niches (ch. 2)
Wed Feb 4	Wisheu. resource partitioning/shared vs distinct niches
Fri Feb 6	contributed papers
week 3
Mon Feb 9	Competition: experiments, observations, and null models (ch. 3)
Wed Feb 11	Brown. ant-rat competition Weiher. null models.
Fri Feb 13	contributed papers
week 4
Mon Feb 16	predation: empirical patterns (ch. 4)
Wed Feb 18	Rooney and Waller. deer wolves
Fri Feb 20	contributed papers
week 5
Mon Feb 23	models of predation (ch. 5)
Wed Feb 25	tba
Fri Feb 27	quiz 1
week 6
Mon Mar 1	food webs (ch. 6)
Wed Mar 3	Paine, R.T. 1966. Food web complexity and species diversity. The American Naturalist 100: 65-75 Martinez, N. tba.
Fri Mar 5	contributed papers
week 7
Mon Mar 8	mutualisms (ch. 7)
Wed Mar 10	Hart et al. Bertness
Fri Mar 12	contributed papers
week 8
Mon Mar 15	indirect effects (ch. 8)
Wed Mar 17	Carpenter. trophic cascade elk or earthworms
Fri Mar 19	contributed papers
spring break
week 9
Mon Mar 29	temporal patterns (ch. 9)
Wed Mar 31	Drake. assembly Tilman. dispersal limitation
Fri Apr 2	contributed papers
week 10
Mon Apr 5	habitat selection (ch. 10)
Wed Apr 7	tba
Fri Apr 9	contributed papers
week 11
Mon Apr 12	spatial dynamics and island biogeography (ch. 11)
Wed Apr 14	Hubbell Lomolino. assembly model
Fri Apr 16	contributed papers
week 12
Mon Apr 19	diversity (ch. 12)
Wed Apr 21	Grace. review Loreau et al. 2001.
Fri Apr 23	contributed papers
week 13
Mon Apr 26	succession (ch. 13)
Wed Apr 28	drury and nisbet Huston and Smith.
Fri Apr 30	contributed papers
week 14
Mon May 3	applications (ch. 14)
Wed May 5	tba tba
Fri May 7	contributed papers
week 15
Mon May 10	debriefing
Wed May 12	quiz 2
Fri May 14	proposal due
Final Exam	1 p.m. Wednesday May 19: evaluations only
requirements
Mondays	Read the assigned chapter and take careful notes. Come to class prepared to discuss the content. I will randomly call on people -- "What were the main points of the section titled 'x' on pages y-z?" "Does anyone have any question on the section titled 'x'?" "Explain figure 1 on page 9." I will keep track of your participation -- 2 points for a good answer or a good question -- 1 point for any kind of poor answer (such as "I don't know") -- 0 points for absent. I will count the number of points and divide this by two times the number of attempts to yield a percentage participation score for the text book readings. 100 points.
Wednesdays	Read the assigned papers and make a detailed outline of both of them. Come to class prepared to discuss the content -- "What were the main points of the section titled 'x' on pages y-z?" "Does anyone have any question on the section titled 'x'?" "Explain figure 1 on page 9." I will keep track of your participation -- 2 points for a good answer or a good question -- 1 point for any kind of poor answer (such as "I don't know") -- 0 points for absent. I will count the number of points and divide this by two times the number of attempts to yield a percentage participation score for the assigned readings. 100 points.
Fridays	Find a paper that was either: (1) cited in the chapter, (2) cites a paper that was cited in the chapter (use the science citation index to find these), or (3) is on-topic. Read the paper and prepare a short, 5-10 minute overview of the paper for class. I will keep track of your presentations on a five point scale -- 5 points for a good presentation -- 4 points for almost good -- 3 points for a fair presentation -- 1 point for "I failed to prepare for class today" -- 0 points for absent. I will count the number of points and divide this by five times the number of attempts to yield a percentage participation score for the contributed papers. 100 points.
quizes	There will be a lot of work to prepare for class, so we'll keep the quizes light and relatively easy. Each quiz will be worth 50 points. The quizes will have a few factual questions focused on content and a few conceptual/thinking questions. Good answers will graded as full credit or A, fair answers will be graded as partial credit or B, I don't expect any poor answers, but these will be graded as D or F.
proposal	This is a writing assignment worth 100 points. Your proposal will consist of: (1) project summary which will include the goals of your research proposal, (2) review of the state of knowledge which will include numerous key references and a synthesis of the the issues, (3) a project description which will introduce one or more hypotheses you would like to test with a basic description of the methods and experimental design, (4) Potential problems that might arise or would need to be addressed (this allows you to honestly assess your experimental design and admit to holes and possible weaknesses).
attendance	Your participation scores are dependent on your attendance. If you are called on and are absent, you will lose points.