Download ESC 558. CONCEPTS AND MODELS IN ECOLOGY

ESC 558. CONCEPTS AND MODELS IN ECOLOGY - SYLLABUS
Prof. Dr. Andrzej Furman
Week 1:Mechanisms of natural selection. Adaptations. Fitness. Hardy-Weinberg principle.
Directional, stabilizing, and disruptive selection. Evolution of virulence.
Week 2:Evolution experiments with microorganisms: The dynamics and genetic bases of
adaptation. The experiment with domestication of silver foxes and pleiotropy.
Week 3:Sexual and asexual reproduction. Lottery, Tangled Bank, Muller’s Ratchet, and Red
Queen models.
Week 4:Intra- and inter-sexual selection. Good Taste and Good Genes models. Handicap
principle. Mating systems.
Week 5:Various concepts of species. Allopatric and sympatric speciation. Random genetic drift.
The Founder effect. Reproductive isolating mechanisms.
Week 6: Midterm 1
Week 7:Evolutionary fundation of animal behaviour (I). Selfish herd. Kin selection and inclusive
fitness. Coefficient of relatedness.
Week 8:Evolutionary fundation of animal behaviour (II). Evolution of cooperation and reciprocal
altruism. Evolutionary stable strategy. The prisoner’s dilemma.
Week 9:Population dynamics. Single species models. Carrying capacity. Ecological niche.
Lotka-Volterra models of interspecific competition. Predator-prey models.
Week 10:Community interactions. Structure of ecosystem. Concepts and patterns of biodiversity.
Species-area relationship. Small population paradigm. Demographic, environmental, and genetic
stochasticity.
Week 11:Declining population paradigm. Overkill. Habitat destruction and fragmentation.
Problem of introduced species. Chains of extinction.
Week 12: Midterm 2
Suggested readings:
Axelrod R, Hamilton WD. (1981). The evolution of cooperation, Science, 211:1390-1396.
Burt A, Bell G. (1987). Mammalian chiasma. Nature 326: 803-805.
Clutton-Brock T. (2007). Sexual Selection in Males and Females, Science, 318: 1882-1885.
Dawkins R. (1995). God’s utility function (a chapter from River out of Eden).
Elena SF,Lenski RE. (2003). Evolution experiments with microorganisms: the dynamics and
genetics bases of adaptation. Nature, 4: 457-469.
Gibbons A. (1996). On the many origins of species, Science, 273: 1496-1499.
Gil D, Graves J, Hazon N, Wells A. (1999). Male attractiveness and differential testosterone
investment in Zebra Finch eggs, Science, 286: 126-128.
Hartfield M, Keightley PD. (2012). Current hypotheses for the evolution of sex and
recombination. Integrative Zoology 7: 192–209.
Mayr E. (1963). Species concepts and their application, (in Ridley, M. [ed.] Evolution, Oxford
Readers, 1997), 165-174.
Norris K. (2004). Managing threatened species: the ecological toolbox, evolutionary theory and
declining-population paradigm, Journal of Applied Ecology, 41: 413–426.
Nowak MA, May RM, Sigmund K. (1995). The arithmetics of mutual help, Scientific American,
272: 50-55.
Pfenning D, Sherman P. (1993).Kin Recognition, Scientific American, June 1995, 68-73.
Suggested textbooks:
Bulmer M. (1994), Theoretical evolutionary ecology, Ch. 8 (Evolutionary game theory).
Ridley M. (1994). The Red Queen, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, Ch. 3 (The
Power of Parasites) andCh. 5 (The Peacock’s Tale),
Ridley M. (1996), Evolution, Blackwell, Ch. 4 (Natural Selection and Variation), Ch. 5 (The
Theory of Natural Selection), Ch. 11 (The Analysis of Adaptation),Ch. 12 (The units of
selection), Ch. 13 (Species Concept and Intraspecific Variation), and Ch. 16 (Speciation).
Townsend CR, Begon M, Harper JL. (2003). Essentials of Ecology, Ch. 2 (Ecology of Evolution),
Ch. 5 (Birth, Death, and Movement), Ch. 6 (Interspecific Competition), Ch. 8 (Predation,
Grazing, and Disease),Ch. 12 (Sustainability).
Zehavi A. (1999). The handicap principle: a missing piece of Darwin's puzzle, Oxford University
Press.