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Fundamentals of Ecology

4-0-8 units. REST · Undergraduate

Fundamentals of ecology, considering Earth as an integrated dynamic living system. Coevolution of the biosphere and geosphere, biogeochemical cycles, metabolic diversity, primary productivity, competition and the niche, trophic dynamics and food webs, population growth and limiting factors. Population modeling, global carbon cycle, climate change, geoengineering, theories of resource competition and mutualism, allometric scaling, ecological genomics, niche theory, human population growth. Applied ecology.

Fall 2009 · Ecology I: The Earth System

Topics

  • Introduction: what is ecology?
  • Evolution of Earth and the biosphere
  • How to be alive/thermodynamics of life
  • Primary productivity I
  • Primary productivity II
  • Biogeochemical cycles
  • Global carbon cycle
  • Limiting factors and Redfield
  • Ecosystem experiments/geoengineering
  • Secondary productivity/food webs
  • Population growth
  • Chemostats/life tables
  • Human population growth
  • Competition and the niche
  • Predation/symbiosis/mutualism
  • Biogeography
  • Project presentations
  • Project presentations (cont.)

Readings

  • Carruthers, G. T. “Locusts in the Red Sea.” Nature 41, no. 1051 (1889): 153. ( PDF ) ↗
    Listed reading
  • Vernadskii, V. I. “The Biosphere.” Biosfera . Leningrad, 1926. Translated by Lawrence R. Pomeroy, University of Georgia.
    Listed reading
  • Rowe, J. Stan. “Biological Fallacy: Life Equals Organisms.” Bioscience 42, no. 6 (1992): 394.
    Listed reading
  • Remmert, Hermann. “Ecology: the Basic Concept.” In Ecology . New York, NY: Springer-Verlag Berlin, 1980. ISBN: 9783540100591.
    Listed reading
  • Des Marais, David J. “When did Photosynthesis Emerge on Earth?” Science 289, no. 5485 (2000): 1703-1705.
    Listed reading
  • Chyba, Christopher F. “Rethinking Earth’s Early Atmosphere.” Science 308 (2005): 962-963.
    Listed reading
  • Kump, Lee R. “The Rise of Atmospheric Oxygen.” Nature 451 (2008): 277-278.
    Listed reading
  • Kaiser, Jocelyn. “ Can Deep Bacteria Live on Nothing but Rocks and Water ?” Science 270, no. 5235 (1995): 377. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Jannasch, Holger W. “Life at the Sea Floor.” Nature 374 (1995): 676-677.
    Listed reading
  • Lovley, Derek R. “Bug Juice: Harvesting Electricity with Microorganisms.” Nature Reviews Microbiology 4, no. 7 (2006): 497-508.
    Listed reading
  • Jetten, Mike, et al. “Microbiology and Application of the Anaerobic Ammonium Oxidation (‘anammox’) Process.” Current Opinion in Biotechnology 12, no. 3 (2001): 283-288.
    Listed reading
  • Morton, Oliver. “Introduction.” In Eating the Sun . London, UK: Fourth Estate, 2008, pp. xi-xix. ISBN: 9780007163649.
    Listed reading
  • Chisholm, S. W. “What Limits Phytoplankton Growth.” Oceanus 35, no. 3 (1992): 36-46.
    Listed reading
  • Falkowski, Paul G. “The Ocean’s Invisible Forest.” Scientific American , August 2002.
    Listed reading
  • Galloway, James, et al. “Transformation of the Nitrogen Cycle: Recent Trends, Questions, and Potential Solutions.” Science 320, no. 5878 (2008): 889-892.
    Listed reading
  • Oki, Taikan, and Shinjiro Kanae. “Global Hydrological Cycles and World Water Resources.” Science 313, no. 5790 (2006): 1068-1072.
    Listed reading
  • Filippelli, Gabriel M. “The Global Phosphorus Cycle: Past, Present, and Future.” Elements 4, no. 2 (2008): 89-95.
    Listed reading
  • Canadell, Josep G., et al. “ Contributions to Accelerating Atmospheric CO2 Growth from Economic Activity, Carbon Intensity, and Efficiency of Natural Sinks .” PNAS 104, no. 47 (2007): 18866-18870. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Field, Christopher B., Michael J. Behrenfeld, James T. Randerson, and Paul Falkowski. “ Primary Production of the Biosphere: Integrating Terrestrial and Oceanic Components .” Science 281, no. 5374 (1998): 237-240. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Falkowski, Paul, et al. “ The Global Carbon Cycle: A Test of Our Knowledge of Earth as a System .” Science 290, no. 5490 (2000): 291-296. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Doney, Scott C., Victoria J. Fabry, Richard A. Feely, and Joan A. Kleypas. “Ocean Acidification: The Other CO2 Problem.” Annual Review of Marine Science 1 (2009): 169-192.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 10 · TOPICS: Limiting factors and Redfield · READINGS: Redfield, Alfred C. “On the Proportions of Organic Derivatives in Seawater and their Relation to the Composition of Plankton.” Chapter 5 in James Johnstone Memorial Volume . Edited by R. J. Daniel. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 1934, pp. 176-192.
    Reading assignment
  • Likens, Gene. “Some Perspectives on Long-term Biogeochemical Research from the Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study.” Ecology 85, no. 9 (2004): 2355-2362.
    Listed reading
  • “A Changing Climate of Opinion?” The Economist , September 4, 2008.
    Listed reading
  • Lovelock, James. “A Geophysiologist’s Thoughts on Geoengineering.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 366, no. 1882 (2008): 3883-3890.
    Listed reading
  • Schiermeier, Quirin. “ Mixing the Oceans Proposed to Reduce Global Warming .” Naturenews , September 26, 2007. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Kintisch, Eli. “Scientists Say Continued Warming Warrants Closer Look at Drastic Fixes.” Science 318 (2007): 1054-1055.
    Listed reading
  • Carpenter, Stephen, et al. “Ecosystem Experiments.” Science 269 (1995): 324-327.
    Listed reading
  • Beddington, John. “The Primary Requirements.” Nature 374 (1995): 213-214.
    Listed reading
  • Pauly, Daniel, and V. Christensen. “Primary Production Required to Sustain Global Fisheries.” Nature 374 (1995): 255-257.
    Listed reading
  • Pauley, Daniel, et al. “Fishing Down Aquatic Food Webs.” American Scientist 88 (2000): 46-51.
    Listed reading
  • Stapp, Paul, Gary A. Polis, and Francisco Sánchez Piñero. “Stable Isotopes Reveal Strong Marine and El Niño Effects on Island Food Webs.” Nature 401 (1999): 467-469.
    Listed reading
  • Peterson, Bruce, Robert Howarth, and Robert Garritt. “Sulfur and Carbon Isotopes as Tracers of Salt-Marsh Organic Matter Flow.” Ecology 67, no. 4 (1986): 865-874.
    Listed reading
  • Dunne, Jennifer, Richard Williams, and Neo Martinez. “Network Structure and Biodiversity Loss in Food Webs: Robustness Increases with Connectance.” Ecology Letters 5 (2002): 558-567.
    Listed reading
  • Bol, Roland, and Christian Pflieger. “Stable Isotope Analysis of the Hair of Modern Humans and Their Domestic Animals.” Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 16 (2002): 2195-2200.
    Listed reading
  • Smil, Vaclav. “How Many Billions to Go?” Nature 401 (1999): 429.
    Listed reading
  • Palumbi, Stephen. “Humans as the World’s Greatest Evolutionary Force.” Science 293 (2001): 1786-1790.
    Listed reading
  • Cohen, Joel. “Population Growth and Earth’s Human Carrying Capacity.” Science 269, no. 5222 (1995): 341-346.
    Listed reading
  • Tilman, David, et al. “Agricultural Sustainability and Intensive Production Practices.” Nature 418 (2002): 671-677.
    Listed reading
  • Wackernagel, Mathis, et al. “National Natural Capital Accounting with the Ecological Footprint Concept.” Ecological Economics 29 (1999): 375-390.
    Listed reading
  • Hindell, Mark. “Some Life-History Parameters of a Declining Population of Southern Elephant Seals, Mirounga Leonina.” Journal of Animal Ecology 60, no. 1 (1991): 119-134.
    Listed reading
  • Lauer, Thomas, and Anne Spacie. “Space as a Limiting Resource in Freshwater Systems: Competition between Zebra Mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) and Freshwater Sponges (Porifera).” Hydrobiologia 517 (2004): 137-145.
    Listed reading
  • Byers, James. “Competition Between Two Estuarine Snails: Implications For Invasions of Exotic Species.” Ecology 81, no. 5 (2000): 1225-1239.
    Listed reading
  • Turchin, P., L. Oksanen, P. Ekerholm, T. Oksanen, and H. Henttonen. “Are Lemmings Prey or Predators?” Nature 405 (2000): 562-565.
    Listed reading
  • Gilg, Olivier, Ilkka Hanski, and Benoit Sittler. “Cyclic Dynamics in a Simple Vertebrate Predator-Prey Community.” Science 302 (2003): 866-868.
    Listed reading
  • Hudson, Peter J., and Ottar N. Bjørnstad. “Vole Stranglers and Lemming Cycles.” Science 302 (2003): 797-798.
    Listed reading
  • Myers, Norman, et al. “Biodiversity Hotspots for Conservation Priorities.” Nature 403 (2000): 853-858.
    Listed reading
  • Worm, Boris, et al. “Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services.” Science 314 (2006): 787-790.
    Listed reading
  • Layard, Richard. “Happiness: Has Social Science a Clue?” Lionel Robbins Memorial Lectures, March 3-5, 2003. London School of Economics.
    Listed reading
  • Turner, Graham. “A Comparison of ‘The Limits to Growth’ with 30 Years of Reality.” Global Environmental Change 18 (2008): 397-411.
    Listed reading
  • Smith, Robert, and Thomas Smith. Ecology and Field Biology . 6th ed. San Francisco, CA: Benjamin Cummings, 2001. ISBN: 9780321068811.
    Listed reading

Prerequisites & course information

Same subject as 7.30[J] , 12.031[J] Prereq: None U (Fall) 4-0-8 units. REST

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