Download BIOL 4120 Principles of Ecology

BIOL 4120
Principles of Ecology
Dafeng Hui
Office: Harned Hall 320
Phone: 963-5777
Email: [email protected]
Dafeng Hui, Ph.D.

Education Background
• Ph.D. in Botany (Ecology), University of
Oklahoma
• MS in Biostatistics and Quantitative
Genetics, Yangzhou University, PR China
• BS in Agronomy, Yangzhou University,
PR China
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Post-doc research experience
• Duke University (Field experiment)
• Auburn University (Modeling)
Introduction (cont.)
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Research interests
• Global change ecology (CO2, temperature,
precipitation etc)
• Ecosystem ecology (carbon, water and nutrient
cycling in grasslands, forests etc.)
• Biostatistical applications in biological sciences
(data analysis, synthesis)
• Web pages:
http://www.tnstate.edu/faculty/dhui
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Teaching interests
• Biostatistics (or Biometry)
• Ecological modeling
• Ecology
Student information

Please introduce yourself:
• Your name
• Major, Junior or senior?
• Courses you have this semester
• Courses you’ve taken that are
relevant to ecology
• Any other thing else you want to
share (knowledge of ecology,
expectation of the course etc)
Course information
Office hours: MWF 11:30 am - 2:00 pm; T Th 9:00-1:00 pm;
or by appointment
Textbook: The Economy of Nature, 6th ed., Robert Ricklefs
Freeman and Company
ISBN10: 0716786974, ISBN13: 9780716786979
Lab manual: Ecology on Campus, 1st ed., Kingsolver,
Robert. 2006. Person/Benjamin Cummings, Inc.
ISBN10: 0805382143, ISBN13: 9780805382143
1.Preparation – read the textbook
2.Download and print the lecture outline for notes at
MYTSU website.
Attendance
Required for both lecture and
laboratory
0.5 point for each absence (lecture)
Grading policy


The overall grade for the course will
be based on the standard TSU pointto-grade scale.
The distribution of points is:
• Exams (four): 50% (extra points)
• Final:
10%
• Laboratory:
25%
• Presentation:
10%
• Attendance:
5%
Homework, Lab report, Exam, Paper and summary
Ecology as a Science
0.1 What is ecology?
0.2 Why do we need to study Ecology?
0.3 How to study ecology?
0.1 What is Ecology ?
Ecology: ~ Greek word oikos (house or
surroundings) +logy (study of)
By ecology we mean the body of knowledge
concerning the economy of nature – the
investigation of the total relations of the animal
both to its organic and to its inorganic
environment. … …
… Ecology is scientific study of the interactions
between organisms and their environments.
Ernst Haeckel, 1866
0.1 What is Ecology ?
Late 1800s, ecology came into general use.
Ecologists
The study of the relationships, distribution, and
abundance of organisms, or groups of organisms,
in an environment.
S.I. Dodson, 1998
Ecology is NOT:
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Environmental Science (i.e., the study of
man's effect on natural systems)
Environmentalism (activism, aim to
improving the environment).
Resource management
•
•
•
•
Wildlife
Fisheries
Soil Resources
Forestry
Ecology as a science is a process, not
just the knowledge it generates

Much of our knowledge about the nature
world is well established
• e.g. Biome concept, succession, effects of
climate change
• Confirmed by observation, experiments,
modeling

Our understanding of many issues is
incomplete and imperfect
• e.g.: which factors determine global patterns
of species richness? How and where the
biosphere sequesters carbon dioxide; role of
predators in control prey populations.
0.2 Why study Ecology?
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Intellectual curiosity (explain phenomena)
Ecology has important impacts on everyone's
daily lives (news on environment)
• Ecosystem services and goods
Huge impact of humans on global
ecosystems--ecology holds key to predicting
our future.
To understand some of the natural laws (e.g.,
physical properties, energy transfer) that
impose limitations on the interaction of
organisms (including humans) with their
living and nonliving environment.
Global Environmental Issues
Global Warming
Deforestation
0.3 How to study ecology?
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Ecology employs the scientific method.
Scientific method is a system of
observation that is "formalized", which
means that it is done is such a way that
one can reproduce the observations under
the same conditions.
It includes 1) observation and description,
2) development of hypotheses or
explanations; and 3) test of these
hypotheses, often with experiments.
The Scientific Method
For Example: Productivity and nutrient (N) in prairie
grasslands of North America
Observation and Hypothesis
Data collection, Test
(observational, laboratory and field experiments, modeling)
BIOL 4120
Principles of Ecology
Dafeng Hui
Office: Harned Hall 320
Phone: 963-5777
Email: [email protected]
Field experiments
experiments have some elements
in common:
Treatment Groups: nitrogen,
irrigation; number of species etc
Control Groups: no N applied
Randomization: randomly
assign a treatment to a plot
Replication: several plots for
same treatment.
Cedar Creek LTER site, Uni. Of
Minnesota
Experiment to test if excluding birds will increase
caterpillar population and then consume more
leaves of oak (top-down control) Marquis and
Whelan (Uni. Of Missouri at St. Louis)
Insects consume 10% of leaves, why not more?
hypotheses: predators control or plant defense
Does the exclusion of bird
increases the consumption by
herbivores on plants?
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Marquis and Whelan (Uni. Of
Missouri at St. Louis)
Number of insects increased by
70% compared to control
Percentage of leaf missing jumped
from 22% in control to 35%.
Estimation and prediction
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Models:
• Abstract, simplified
representations of
real systems.
• Conceptual model
and mathematical
model
• Use mathematical
model to estimate
and predict.
Are there any limitations to science?
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Science is Self-Correcting
• Science is limited by the ability of the
scientists to collect and interpret
data.
• New technology makes it possible for
science to correct misinterpreted
data.
• Uncertainty is an inherent feature of
science
Chapter 1. The Economy of Nature
1.1 Ecology is organized into a hierarchical
group of sub-disciplines (branches)
1.2 Hierarchical Organization and emergent
Properties
1.3 Ecology is especially interdisciplinary.
1.4 Lecture arrangement
1.1 Ecology is organized into a
hierarchical group of subdisciplines
Organisms (Individual organism)
- living organisms, fundamental units of
populations and communities
Populations
- group of individuals of a species
Communities
- an assemblages of species populations
occurring together in space and time
Ecosystems
- a collection of two related components (biotic and
abiotic) that function as a unit.
Ecosystem
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Consists of two basic interacting
components:
• The living organisms, or biotic
• The Physical environment, or abiotic
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Ecosystem varies in size from small to
large
An example
• A forest ecosystem
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Biotic: plants, animals, microbes that inhabit the
forest
Abiotic: atmosphere, climate, soil, and water
Interaction: tree growths modify physical
environment. Birds foraging on insects reduce insects
and species abundance and composition.
Each ecological
system
embodies
different
processes
Ecology of individual organisms
Individual organism forms the basic unit in ecology. It
is the individual organism that responds to the
environment.
Behavioral ecology is the study of how behavior of
individuals affects their ability to survive and reproduce.
How animals adapt to local environment.
Physiological Ecology (or Autecology) is the study of how
physical factors, such at temperature, moisture, and light,
affect the survival and reproduction and other biological
processes of individual organisms.
Evolution Ecology is the study of environment influence on the
evolution of organisms. Natural selection, evolution of
populations.
Ecology of group of individual organisms
Population ecology is the study of how groups of individuals (the
same species) grow (or shrink) and reproduce. Depending on the
nature of the species, many factors (food availability, competition,
predation etc.) may affect population growth.
Community ecology is the study of how populations from different
species interact to mutually affect each population's growth and
survival. Community structure and dynamics.
Ecosystem ecology is the study of whole living systems, with focus
on the flow of energy and biomass in large scale living systems.
Landscape ecology – study spatial patterns and underlying
mechanisms (patches in landscape, fragmented landscape,
corridors).
Conservation ecology, restoration ecology, and global change
ecology.
1.2 Hierarchical Organization and
Emergent Properties
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Emergent Properties:
• the set of phenomena that can be explained
only by looking at a particular hierarchical level
• e.g.: is the growth of an individual the same as
that in a group of many (population)?
The principle is a more formal statement of “the
whole is more (or less) than the sum of the
parts”.
e.g.: species richness; ant colonies
Ecological processes have characteristic
scales in space and time
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Spatial variation:
• Environment differs from place to place
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Climate; Topography; Soil types
 heterogeneity
• Species (plant and animal) differ in space
• Their interactions differ (e.g. dry and wet)
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Temporal variation:
• Environment varies from time to time (diurnal,
seasonal, interannual)
• Organisms vary (growth, age, size)
• Their interactions differs.
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Spatial-Temporal correlation (Big events)
1.3 Ecology is especially interdisciplinary
1.4 Lecture arrangement
The End