BIOL 405: Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecology

Note - this class was titled 'Advanced Animal Ecology' in course catalogs prior to the current 2006-08 catalog.  

GOALS:  This class is intended to give a good understanding of several major aspects of animal behavior, evolution and ecology.  A second major goal is to develop your ability to interpret real data sets.  A third goal is to develop your ability to understand and use simple mathematical models of population dynamics and interspecific interactions.  I will often ask you to explain things verbally, graphically, and algebraically, and to relate these ways of explaining to one another.

Class Hours & Location: Tuesday & Thursday 11:00 - 12:15, Linfield Hall 109.  On several days with computer exercises, class meets in Roberts Hall 111. The dates are noted in the schedule.

Instructor: Dr. Scott Creel, 302 Lewis Hall, Phone: 994-7033.  Email: screel@montana.edu

Office Hours: Monday and Wedensday 10-12, or by appointment. If my office hours are not convenient, please talk to me to arange another time and we will figure something out.  I almost always have time for questions right after class.  You're welcome to email questions (but try to avoid using email just before a test, because I might not read it in time).

Text: Ecology, 4th edition, by Begon, Harper & Townsend is required. Other required reading (journal articles) will be posted here.

Lecture notes: are available from the links below.

Grading:

Exam 1: 25%, Exam 2: 25%, Exam 3: 25%. (Exam 3 will fall in finals week, but will not be comprehensive.)  The tests will be short answer and essay questions. For some materal, the tests involve doing calculations, so bring your calculator on exam days.  There will typically be some questions you must answer, plus a set of essays with some flexibility in which questions you choose to answer.

Problem sets and computer exercises: 20%  Several lectures will include computer labs. In these, you will use the methods described in lectures to test ideas with simulations of population dynamics. In some cases, a graded homework assignment will be based on the computer exercise.  There will also be a few graded take-home problem sets that are not based on computer labs.  Together, these homework assignments account for 25% of the grade.  5% based on attendance and participation.

Computer Labs:  We will use the software packages GenX and Populus to examine evolution, population growth, and interactions among species (such as interspecific competition and predation), in a series of computer labs. POPULUS has simple simulations that allow you to manipulate the variables in mathematical models of ecological processes, and see the results graphically.

There are two versions of Populus in the Biol 405 folder at \\hoppernew\labshare (which you can access using 'Map Network Drive' by right-clicking 'My Computer' on any networked machine). Version 3.4, in a folder named Populus34 works on most computers: it is DOS-based and the mouse will not work... use the arrow keys as it explains.   A newer version 5.3 might not run everywhere, but has fancier graphics and is Windows based so the mouse works and the menus will work intuitively.

To learn about access to software on the MSU local network, see this link: Using Network Drives to Access Software on the MSU network.

If you want to download POPULUS onto your personal computer, use the link below

Overheads: Figures used as overheads will be made available:  I'll  explain this in the first lecture.

Some examples and guidelines for the exams:

Some example questions for Exam 1.

Example questions for Exam 2.

Exam 3 questions/guide.

Course Outline, lecture notes and reading assignments:  Lecture titles will be links that display lecture notes.  I will post each lecture’s notes after the lecture.

R 17 Jan   1. Introduction and the physical environment.    Reading: BHT 30-46/7  (Unless specified othersie, all page numbers refer to the text by Begon Harper & Townsend

T 22 Jan   2. Climate change and ecology

R 34 Jan   3. Allocating resources: constraints & trade-offs (first 1.5 pages only).  Reading:  BHT 58-69

T 29 Jan  4. Acquiring resources: optimal foraging.   Reading: BHT 282-293

R 31 Jan  5. Evolution I: variability & heritability, genotype & phenotype, fitness, selection and response.  Reading:  BHT 3-20 and  Dawkins (1986) The Blind Watchmaker, 43-50

T 5 Feb       continued

R 7 Feb Computer lab (meet in Roberts 109) 6. Evolution II: Computer simulations of drift, dispersal, selection.  Link to GenX.exe.  Includes HW1.

T 12 Feb  HW1 due. 7. Evolution III: Levels and types of selection Reading: (1) Hamilton (1963) American Naturalist 97:354-356 Dawkins (1976) The  Selfish Gene, 12-48.

R 14 Feb  8. Resource dispersion and animal spacing patterns.  Reading: Macdonald (1983) Nature 301:379-384

T 19 Feb  EXAM 1.

R 21 Feb  9.  Group living: costs and benefits from the perspectives of predators and prey.  Reading:  (1) Alcock pp. 356-369 (2) Bednarz (1988) Science 239:1525-1527 (3) Hamilton (1971) Journal of Theoretical Biology 31:295-300 (4) Dunbar (1997) Nature 386:555-556

T 26 Feb      continued

(3/4/08 schedule note: We are approximately one week behind this schedule.  Everything will stay in the same sequence, so HW2 will be in the week after Spring Break.)

R 28 Feb  10. Demography and age-structured populations  Reading: BHT 94-107.  Includes HW2.

T 4 Mar    HW2 due (updated due date is TH 3/20)

R 6 Mar  Demography continued.  Evolutionary life history trade-offs, Leslie matrices and stable age distributions.   Reading: BHT 108-118, 122-123

Link to more notes on using Leslie Matrices to examine age-structured
population growth rate

Link to Leslie Matrix "Calculator": good way to see how population size projections work (one time step at a time), and to see how constant lx and mx yield stable age distribution after several time steps

Mar 10 - 14 Spring Break

T 18 Mar  11. Population growth.  Reading: BHT 132-151
Link to POPTOOLS - add in for Microsoft Excel that facilitates many kinds of population modelling

R 20 Mar  12.   Populationg growth continued.  Intraspecific competition and density dependence.  Reading: BHT 132-151
Link to download POPULUS software if you want to run it on your  personal computer.  We'll be using this for the rest of the labs.

T 25 Mar  13.  Interspecific competition: theory. Reading: BHT 227-239

R 27 Mar   14. Interspecific competition case study: African wild dogs

T 1 Apr  Computer lab.  Interspecific competition simulations.  (This will be on TH 4/10 in Roberts Hall, same room as previously)

R 3 Apr  continued

KEY for HW2

T 8 Apr  EXAM 2  (WILL BE ON 15 APRIL, and will cover the material from resources & territoriality through interspecific competiton)

R 10 Apr  15. Ecological niches.  Reading:  BHT 257-265, 550-560

T 15 Apr  16.  Predation: theory.  Reading:  BHT  266-267, 279-282

R 17 Apr  17.   Predation: data.  Reading:  BHT 297-311

T 22 Apr  Computer lab.  Predation simulations.  Includes HW3, not graded but rquired and covered on exam 3.

R 24 Apr  Parasitism & Disease - background and case studies  (Parasitism NOT COVERED in 2008)

T 29 Apr  Parasitism & Disease - Epidemiology and S-I-R models  Reading: BHT 354-380.

R 1 May  continued

5 May 2:00-3:50 FINAL EXAM over material since Exam 2, which is niches and predation.