Transcript Slide 1

Community Ecology
BDC331 Pt1
Mark J Gibbons, Room 4.102, BCB Department, UWC
Tel: 021 959 2475. Email: [email protected]
Image acknowledgements – http://www.google.com
Course Aims and Structure
Objectives:
•To train students in some of the basic theories of community
ecology
•To provide students with the necessary skills to enable them to
undertake surveys and identify biological communities
Required Background:
Any course on community ecology requires a certain level of
background theory and skills - if it is to be successful. For this
course, they include a working knowledge of:
Measures of central tendency and dispersion
MSExcel
It is also assumed that students are able to build simple singlespecies models of population growth and that they have a
knowledge of intra-specific competition.
As many of you may have forgotten this background, it will be
necessary to spend a short period of time completing this work.
Approach:
The course is a balance between theory, laboratory and
field: any person that goes on to work (e.g.) in nature
conservation needs to know why data on communities need to
be collected, they need to know how to collect the data and then
how to analyse the data. They may also need to make informed
decisions (often of a management nature) based on the data. As
a consequence, any course on community ecology needs to
include elements of theory, fieldwork and laboratory simulation,
and here the theory and laboratory simulation go very much
hand in hand.
NB: It is not possible to cover everything in the theory AND
develop your field, analytical and report-writing skills. As a
consequence, some areas of theory are ignored entirely or are
glossed over very superficially.
ALL LECTURES AND SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL WILL
BE PROVIDED ON THE INTERNET AFTER THEY HAVE
BEEN PRESENTED
Contents
Defining a community
Summarizing characteristics
Examining links
Community changes
in space and time:
Succession
Disturbance
Inter-specific Interactions II:
Predation
Inter-specific Interactions I:
Competition
Introduction: Definitions
Effect of Competition and Predation
in structuring communities
[Field &] Analytical
Theory & Modeling
Theory, Modelling [and Field]
Timetable
There will be three lectures per week and two practical
classes. ALL classes will take place in the seminar room on
the 5th floor of the Life Sciences Building
IT IS EXPECTED THAT YOU WILL ATTEND ALL CLASSES
ON TIME
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Date
02-Feb-15
03-Feb-15
05-Feb-15
05-Feb-15
06-Feb-15
09-Feb-15
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12-Feb-15
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02-Mar-15
03-Mar-15
05-Mar-15
05-Mar-15
06-Mar-15
09-Mar-15
10-Mar-15
12-Mar-15
12-Mar-15
13-Mar-15
16-Mar-15
17-Mar-15
19-Mar-15
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20-Mar-15
23-Mar-15
24-Mar-15
26-Mar-15
26-Mar-15
27-Mar-15
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Topic
Introduction, Aims, Definitions ETC
MSExcel & Population Dynamics: Assess. Report data
Sampling 1
Sampling 2
Community Properties; Area problems
Community Properties; diversity indices
How to ID Communities: Conceptual overview
How to ID Communities: similarity matrices by hand
How to ID Communities: drawing dendrograms by hand: PRIMER
Correlations
Competition - Mechanisms; simple 2 spp Models
FIELD WORK - CFNR
FIELD WORK - CFNR
FIELD WORK - CFNR
Competition - Simple 2 spp Models: SUMMARY
Competition - Niche width: Searsia Practical
Competition - Simple 2 spp Models
Competition - Simple 2 spp Models
Competition - Simple 2 spp Models: SUMMARY
Predation - Types & Effects
Assignment Deadlines
Poster 1 - Communities
Mr A Engelbrecht
Predation Models: Simple 2 spp models - exponential
Predation Models: Simple 2 spp models - logistic
Predation Models: Simple 2 spp models - exponential with refuges
Predation Models: Simple 2 spp models - SUMMARY
Succession - Markov Chain
Succession - biological mechanisms I: Markov Chains
Succession - biological mechanisms II, Climax concept
Searsia Practical
Poster 2 - Literature
TEST
Disturbance
Disturbance in Markov Chain Models I
Disturbance in Markov Chain Models II
Competition and Communities - I
Null Models
Null Models
CFNR Community REPORT
Assessments and Deadlines
Evaluation will take the form of continuous assessment.
This continuous assessment is broken up as follows:
Class test (33%) + Practical work (67%) = Course Mark
Course Mark (60%) + Exam (40%) = Final Mark
Class Test
The class test will be held on THURSDAY 19 March 2015
during the scheduled practical class. Students will be tested on
ALL material covered prior to that date.
Practical Work
In this course, the practical component will comprise four
evaluations. These are listed below:
Poster 1: Changes in Communities – 25% to Prac Mark
Final Deadline – Monday 16 February 2015
Poster 2: Literature – 25% to Prac Mark
Final Deadline – Monday 16 March 2015
Searsia Practical Report – 10% to Prac Mark
Final Deadline – Monday 9 March 2015
CFNR Community Report - 40% towards Practical Mark
Final Deadline – Friday 27 March 2015
PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT FACULTY RULES REGARDING
PLAGIARISM AND THE SUBMISSION OF LATE
ASSIGNMENTS WILL BE UPHELD
You will be expected to use Turnitin
IN THREES
POSTER 1
Create a poster (size A0) in MS PowerPoint to illustrate
changes in the biological communities, and the factors that
contribute to these changes, associated with the following
environmental gradients
1. From sea-level to 8 000 m altitude
2. From canopy to forest floor in a tropical rainforest
3. From epipelagic to deep-sea bathypelagic
4. From kelp beds to the hadal - benthos
5. From the land to the sea – rocky intertidal
6. From freshwater to seawater – estuaries
7. From leaf-litter to bedrock – a soil profile
8. From freshly dead to remineralisation
9. From rocky to muddy shores – sediment size
The poster MUST be professional in appearance
The audience is
undergraduate
students –
Teaching Tool
The poster will be assessed using a rubric and
ALL TEXT must be submitted to Turnitin and the
report attached
POSTER 2
Create a poster (size A0) in MS PowerPoint to illustrate one
of the following topics:
1. Mutualism
2. Commensalism
3. Defensive responses of plants to grazing
4. Optimal foraging and diet width
5. Type I, II and III functional responses
6. Primary succession on sand dunes
7. Secondary succession in forest gaps
8. Concept of successional climax
9. Competition-colonisation tradeoffs in succession
10. Resource-ratio hypothesis in succession
11. Vital attributes in succession
12. The role of animals in succession
13. The effect of fire on plant communities
14. The effect of keystone predators in marine
ecosystems
15. The effect of keystone predators in terrestrial
ecosystems
16. Community changes linked to seasonality
IN [different] THREES
POSTER 2
The poster should be based on a published, peer-reviewed
scientific paper that CLEARLY illustrates the concept
behind the topic OR that CLEARLY shows how the concept
can influence biological community structure.
NB in some cases, more than one source will be needed.
1 000 word maximum
The poster MUST be professional in appearance
The audience is undergraduate students – Teaching Tool
The poster will be assessed using a rubric and
ALL TEXT must be submitted to Turnitin and the
report attached
TITLE
CONCEPT NOTE
& DEFINITION
Legend
Article Details
METHODS
*
Legend
Legend
RESULTS & DISCUSSION
Legend
Acknowledgements
Resource partitioning amongst Searsia
species
Collect data from the CFNR: enter and consolidate data;
analyse data; prepare figures and/or tables that illustrate
findings; write text that summarises results.
250 words maximum, including legends to figures and/or
tables.
CFNR REPORT
To undertake a vegetation survey along a line transect
across the CFNR using appropriate field techniques, and to
prepare a fully referenced report entitled “ Preliminary
descriptions of the plant communities of the CFNR” for
consideration of publication in a peer-reviewed scientific
journal of your choice.
Your report mustbe no more than 1500 words max: 2 line
spacing, Times Roman, pages numbered etc etc
Keep figures to a minimum - only essential ones: NO raw
data. NO use of personal. Be efficient with words in the
methods but be clear how you have cleaned up the data
and if you have transformed data.
Your reports MUST include:
•A dendrogram from which communities are identified.
•A concise description of each of the identified
communities
•An estimate of each community’s diversity (with 95% CI)
Pass or Fail?
A student is deemed to have passed the course if her/his Final
mark (i.e. Coursework + Exam) is ≥50% AND the Exam mark is ≥40%
AND the Practical mark is ≥50%
Should a student obtain a Final mark of ≥50% AND have a
Practical mark of ≥50% BUT have an Exam mark <40%, then that
student will get an opportunity to write a Supplementary Exam*
Should a student obtain a Final mark of 45-49%, AND the Practical
mark is ≥50%, then that student will have an opportunity to write a
Supplementary Exam*
Should a student obtain a Coursework mark (i.e. Class tests +
Practical) of ≥50% AND have a Practical mark of ≥50% AND have an
Exam mark of ≥30% then that student will get an opportunity to write a
Supplementary Exam*
A student who does not meet the above grades fails and is
not eligible to sit the Supplementary Exam.
A student who fails to get a mark of 50% in the Practical work
automatically fails, regardless of the Coursework or Exam mark – such
a student not being eligible to sit the final exam.
Similarly, a student that fails to obtain a course-work mark of less
than 40% is not eligible to sit the final exam.
* - Supplementary exams will be held at the end of the
examination period. This exam will test the student on ALL
the work undertaken in the module.
Readings
Although there are no prescribed books for this course, the
following texts are recommended (especially those in boldtypeface).
•Begon, M., Harper, J.L. and Townsend, C.R. (1990).
Ecology: Individuals, Populations and Communities.
Blackwell Scientific Publications, 945pp.
•Begon, M. and Mortimer, M. (1986). Population Ecology: A
Unified Study of Animals and Plants. Blackwell Scientific
Publications, 220pp.
•Krebs, C.J. (1999). Ecological Methodology. Benjamin
Cummings, 620pp.
•Morin. P.J. (1999). Community Ecology. Blackwell Science,
424pp
•Zar, J.H. (1984) Biostatistical Analysis. Prentice-Hall