Biology 373 – Ecology

Professor: Eric R. Pianka An introduction to ecology, the study of relationships among organisms and

between organisms and their environment; adaptations, population,

communities, and ecosystems. Includes both plants and animals and both

terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Three lecture hours and one discussion

hour a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Biology 325 or 325H with a grade

of at least C. 

http://www.utexas.edu/courses/bio373/

Download Syllabus from above site

Biology 373 – Ecology

Professor: Eric R. Pianka

Office: Patterson 125, Mon.,

Fri. 1-2 PM

471-7472, erp@austin.utexas.edu

Instructor and Course Websites:

http://uts.cc.utexas.

edu/~varanus/

http://www.utexas.edu/courses/bio373/

Download Syllabus from above

site

Teaching Assistant: Office: Patterson Office Hours: xxx@gmail.comDiscussion Sections

Wednesday 10-11

Wednesday 11-12

Friday 9-10

Friday 10-11

(Will not meet Friday, start next week)

Pianka, Evolutionary Ecology, 6th or

7th editions

You can also read these on line at

Blackboard’s “Course Documents”

Please Read

Chapter 1

Chapter 8

“Scientific Methods”

“Natural Selection”

[Also, please look over Chapters 2 through

7 to make

certain you are familiar with that

background material]

For this generation,

who must confront the

shortsightedness of their ancestors . . .

Suggested Additional Reading

Case, An Illustrated

Guide to

Theoretical Ecology

(read pp. 79-100)

Gotelli, A Primer of Ecology (pp. 2-

85)

Ginzburg and Golenberg, Lectures in

Theoretical Population Biology (read

pp. 1-5 and 193-219)

An Illustrated Guideto Theoretical Ecology

Ted J. Case

Exams:

First Exam: 4 Oct.

Second Exam: 1 Nov.

Third Exam: 6 Dec.

Final Exam: 17 December, 2-5 PM

Best 2 of 3 = 50% + Final

50%

[No “Make Up” Exams!]

Grades:

Three hour exams

4 Oct.

1 Nov. > Best 2 of 3 =

50%

6 Dec.

Final 50% : 17 December, 2-5

PM +/- Grading System

will be used

[No “Make Up” Exams!]

Politicians and other advertisers equate ecology with “beer cans and pollution” and environment with “clean air and clean water,” in short thehuman environment. Anthropocentric.All other organisms have environments, too.

Environment is defined as all the physical and biotic factors impinging upon a particular organismic unit, as well as everything affectedby that organismic unit.

An organismic unit could be an individual, apopulation, or even all of the organisms livingtogether in a particular ecosystem, an entire community.

These constitute different levels of organization in the biological hierarchy of life.

Ecology is defined as the study of the interactionsbetween organisms and their environments.

Ecology requires wild organisms in the naturalenvironments within which they evolved and towhich they have become adapted.

Ecology requires wild organisms in the naturalenvironments within which they evolved and towhich they have become adapted.

Once, we were surrounded by wilderness and wild animals, now we surround them.

Anthropocentrism — humans see themselves at the center of the universe.

What good are rattlesnakes?

Snakes in Cages

“Love” in Vials

Captive organisms are out of context, they don’t have a natural environment (they might as well be dead as far as an ecologist is concerned)

Henry David Thoreau (1854)

Walden “Book of Life” metaphor Holmes Rolston (1985) “Vanishing Book of Life”Humans are just beginning to be able to read it, but its pages are tattered and torn, and entire chapters have been ripped out. Need to save as much as possible (conservation biology), but also must READ it (ecology) before it is gone. Other Earthlings have a right to exist, too.

Holmes Rolston

Hierarchical Organization of the Biological Sciences

<—————— Integrative Biology——————————>

Hierarchical Organization of the Biological Sciences

Please go to course website and read NY Times: “Depth of Time” articleAlso, please read Nee’s one page commentary in Nature (downloadable pdf)

Daniel T. Haydon

Time and Space Scaling in Ecology

Daily movements (home range, territory)

Dispersal events (immigration,

emigration)

Colonization of new areas and habitats

Geographic range expansion or contraction

Geographical patterns of diversityDaniel R. Brooks

Models may be verbal, graphical, or mathematical

Model: mere “caricatures of nature” (all models are imperfect)

Trade offs in construction of models

precisiongeneralityrealism

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