General Information

Grad Core Ecology (Bio 516)

Fall 2015

Instructors:

Helen J. Wearing, Associate Professor

Office: Castetter Hall 106

Office hours: Wednesdays 11-12 or by appointment

Felisa A. Smith, Professor

Office: 1462 Castetter (PiBBs suite, first floor of Biology Building)

Office hours:  Tuesdays 3:15-5 “ish” (unless we have a faculty meeting), or just stop by and see if I’m busy.

Overview of the course.

Our philosophy is that graduate training is about guiding you along the transition from learning about science, which is mostly what you did as an undergrad, to actually doing your own science, which is what you are likely to be doing for the rest of your career. Ideally, this class will do 3 things:  a) provide a background to seminal literature in ecology, b) stimulate your creativity and c) sharpen your critical and analytical skills.

To accomplish these goals we will do 2 things. First, we will spend class time (on Tuesdays and Thursdays 2-3:15) in discussions of the foundational literature using the text ‘Foundations of Ecology’, in what we hope will be a lively, informal and productive atmosphere. Count on 2-4 papers per week. When you read these papers, we’d like you to not only focus on the content, but on the context – who was this person(s), what type of expertise did they have, how did they develop the ideas, why are they so important, what has happened to these ideas in the intervening 40-ish years and so forth. Students are responsible for leading these discussions. Consequently, each section of the book will have 2-3 resident experts who will write a synopsis on the class blog and be responsible for guiding the in-class discussion (see schedule for specifics).

Second, you will be writing a research review for your section. The point of this is to highlight what has happened to the topics since these papers and to pick (and justify!) what new papers would go into a new review on this topic. Some of this you will be doing during your 2-week stint as a discussion leader, but we would like a formal review as well. Whilst a bit painful, this will provide hands-on experience in how to find and synthesize current research. You can work with your discussion partner(s) or go it alone.

Papers are due THE LAST DAY OF CLASS on DECEMBER 3!

In addition, to assist you in building a solid platform for your graduate training, the Wednesday class (10-10:50) will be devoted to various aspects of professional development relevant to your graduate careers and beyond. The schedule lists topics that we think will be of interest, however, please let us know if we’ve overlooked something that you would like to discuss as well.
 

Grading.

This is a graduate course, so we expect all students to participate fully, work hard, and do well. We will be reviewing your participation in class and on the blog. Grading is based on the idea that we expect grad students to get “A”s; lower grades indicate increasingly mediocre performance. Final grades will be assigned according to: blog posts and comments (30%); in-class participation (30%); research review paper and presentation (40%).

Course Text (required).
Real, L. and J.H. Brown. 1991. Foundations of Ecology: classic papers with commentaries. University of Chicago Press, Chicago