Community Ecology

 (BSC 405 – Fall 2008)

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INSTRUCTOR:           Steven Juliano            E-MAIL:          sajulian@ilstu.edu

OFFICE:                      335 FSA                      WEB PAGE:    http://www.bio.ilstu.edu/juliano/default.htm  

OFFICE HRS.:            TBA                            LECTURE:      MWF  1:00 - 1:50 PM  FSA 325

PHONE:                      82642                          LAB:                Th     12:00 – 2:50 PM  SLB 421

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COURSE CONTENT:  Community ecology is a broad topic, and different ecologists have very different views of what the proper definition of community ecology is.  In this course, community ecology is defined as the branch of ecology dealing with multispecies assemblages and the processes that influence the number of species, their relative abundances, their patterns of resource use, and spatial and temporal changes in these assemblage properties.  The course will emphasize a reductionistic and mechanistic approach to the topic, although holistic and descriptive approaches will be covered because of their historical importance.  Community ecology as defined in this course includes both ecological and evolutionary questions.

I will hand out PowerPoint lecture material for notes.  The handouts by themselves are not an adequate summary of the content.  They are an outline.  Attending lectures, and taking detailed notes on the explanations of the concepts and data is essential for you to understand this subdiscipline.  The handouts also cannot capture any discussion that occurs in class. 

TEXTS: 

Morin, P. J. 1999. Community Ecology.  Blackwell Science, Malden MA. 

Chase, J.M.,  & Leibold, M.A. 2003.  Ecological Niches:  Linking classical and contemporary approaches.  University of Chicago Press, Chicago IL

These two books provide an excellent introduction to modern community ecology. We will cover both texts extensively (see lecture outline with assigned readings). 

I  will make lists of relevant references from the primary literature available to you.  I will make some required reading assignments from these lists.  Assigned papers will be made available electronically, or in the cabinets in Julian 210 (Biology Office).  These lists will be valuable for further reading related to your grant proposals and laboratories (see below) and for future reference in your career as biologists and ecologist.  Several important books will be on open reserve at the Milner Desk.

GRADE:  You will be graded based on your performance on the following:

                1.             1 Midterm exam                                                                    20%

                2.             3 Laboratory research reports                                            30%

                3.             1 Grant proposal                                                                   25%

                4.             Cumulative final exam                                                          25%

MIDTERM EXAM:  This will be a relatively short exam given during the 7th week (date to be announced).  Questions will be short answer and a choice of essays.  Grading of essays will be in part based on the clarity with which you express your answers, hence it is not enough to know theory and data.  You must be able to express your knowledge in a coherent answer to a question.

LABORATORY REPORTS:  There are 3 laboratory projects in this course, each designed to teach you about the kinds of questions asked in community ecology, and also about some of the methods used.  Because we are constrained to complete the laboratory projects within a semester, with rather limited scientific and logistic resources available, there have been some inevitable compromises in the duration, scale, and level of replication in these projects.  Nonetheless, expect these laboratory projects to be lots or work.  In particular, the laboratory projects will require a substantial amount of effort outside of the laboratory period.

Your reports should be written as a paper for the journal Ecology (Instructions to Authors for that journal are at:  http://esapubs.org/esapubs/AuthorInstructions.htm ).  They must be turned in on time (deadlines on the laboratory schedule).  Figures should be of publication quality and appropriately labeled.  There will be questions associated with each lab that will help direct the writing of your reports.

GRANT PROPOSAL:  The subject should, of course, be related to the content of the course.  Your project may be related to your thesis research, but if it is, it should represent a contribution made by the material covered in the course.  In other words, it should not be the same project you would have done had you not taken Community Ecology.  I must approve all projects.

It is vitally important for your proposal that you propose to answer some questions about a particular facet of community ecology.  Proposals simply to gather numbers are not acceptable. 

There are two parts to this assignment.

1) PRE-PROPOSAL.  A written proposal, <3 single spaced pages in length (including references), is to be submitted by 15 September.  I will read your pre-proposals, make suggestions, and approve the direction of the proposal.  In your pre-proposal, you should give a brief introduction to the topic and previous work, describe the question or hypothesis that you intend to address, the organisms that are the focus of the proposed work, and outline briefly the proposed experiments.

2) FINAL PROPOSAL.  You will write a research proposal in the format of an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (there are of course other agencies but I want to standardize the format). Instructions for preparing the proposal (format, content, necessary forms) can be found in NSF’s Grant Proposal Guide:  http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=gpg .

Informatin specific to Dissertation Improvement Grants can be found in the program announcement:

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05607/nsf05607.pdf

Given the nature of the course, you will almost certainly write a proposal for submission to Division of Environmental Biology (DEB), Ecological Biology Cluster.  Examning their web pages (e.g., to see descriptions of the kinds of projects they fund) would be useful: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=12823&org=DEB&sel_org=DEB&from=fund

The proposal is due on 5 December (last day of classes).  If you turn in your proposal (summary and project description), in the appropriate final form, by Monday 10 November, I will make editorial comments and suggestions for improvements and return the paper to you for revisions.  The 10 November deadline is strictly optional.  The revised version is to be turned in by the 5 December deadline. 

Your project will be graded based on the following criteria:

a)  Meeting pre-proposal and proposal deadlines.

b)  Quality of the question/hypothesis posed in the proposal. 

c)  A thorough review of the subject and existing knowledge, placing the research in context. 

d)  Clear design of experiments, sampling, etc. to answer the question. 

e)  Realistic match of the research plan with the questions. 

f)  A realistic budget. 

g)  Addressing both of NSF’s funding criteria (Intellectual merit, Broader impacts)

c)  Following the format requirements for NSF grants. 

FINAL EXAM:  This will be a cumulative exam given as scheduled during exam week (Tuesday 9 December, 1:00 PM).  As with the midterm, questions will be short answer and a choice of essays, and grading of essays will be in part based on the clarity with which you express your answers.  Again, you must be able to express your knowledge in a coherent answer to a question.

LECTURE OUTLINE

                                                (the instructor reserves the right to change the lecture plan at any time)                                 

Introduction                                                                                                                 

                Hierarchical organization in ecology                                                                pp. 1-17

                What is community ecology supposed to explain?                                       pp. 21-28                           

                Methods in community ecology

   Application to conservation

Patterns

                Species Diversity: Concept (or non-concept)                                                 pp. 17-21

                A diversity of indices

                Diversity & Stability, Diversity & Productivity                                              pp. 305-338

                Species-area relationships & Biogeography                                                   pp. 293-301

Processes:Competition

                Interspecific competition                                                                                    pp. 29-34                           

                Traditional models (brief review)                                                                       pp. 34-40                               

                Resource competition models                                                                            pp. 40-53                            pp. 19-36; 45-47       

                Experimental data on competition                                                                     pp. 67-98                            Ch. 4, 6

                Different kinds of resources                                                                                                                           Ch. 5

                Evolution in response to competition - character displacement                                                              Ch. 7, 10

Processes: Predation

                Predation and parasitism                                                                                    pp. 104-105

                Traditional models (brief review)                                                                       pp. 136-153           

                Resource based predator-prey models                                                                                                         pp. 47-50

                Experimental data on predation                                                                         pp. 108-135                        pp. 62-64

                Keystone species effects                                                                                   pp. 123-135, 132-134         pp. 36-45; 47-50

                Direct and indirect effects                                                                                 pp. 205-212, 221-231         p. 36

                Indirect mutualism                                                                                               pp. 212-214

                Trophic cascades                                                                                                 pp. 214-221

Processes: Disturbance

                Disturbance & Stress                                                                                                                                      pp. 37-40

                Nonequilibrium coexistence                                                                               pp. 318-322                        Ch. 6

Processes:  Mutualism

                Mutualism                                                                                                             pp. 185-186; 191-204

                Population models of mutualism                                                                       pp. 187-190

                Conditional mutualism

Patterns Redux

                Assembly, succession, and productivity                                                        pp. 235-258; 353-357        Ch. 8

                Ecological niche                                                                                                   pp. 54-66                            Ch. 1,3       

                Unified Neutral Theory of Community Ecology                                                                                         Ch. 11

Putting things together

                Null Hype:  Null models in community ecology                                              pp. 98-103

                Patterns in food webs                                                                                         pp. 154-167           

                Hypotheses for the patterns                                                                              pp. 167-184           

Applied community ecology

                Disease, biological control, conservation                                                        pp. 106-107; 366-375

LABORATORY SCHEDULE

P Field Laboratory.  There is potential for late returns, heat, cold, or rain (believe it), & other ecological  inconveniences.

: Computer Laboratory.  Meet in SLB 121