PCB 3043L - Ecology Lab

College of Natural Sciences

Credit(s): 1
Contact Hours: 45
Effective Term Fall 2019 (565)

Requisites

Prerequisite BSC 2011 with a minimum grade of C and
Prerequisite BSC 2011L with a minimum grade of C and
Pre- or Co-requisite PCB 3043 with a minimum grade of C and
Pre- or Co-requisite BSC 3017 with a minimum grade of C

Course Description

This course is designed to teach ecology at four major levels: organismic, population, community and ecosystem. One of the aims is to interrelate the different levels of ecological study and to unify these via evolutionary and behavioral ecology. A second aim is to correlate the concepts of ecology with those learned in physiology to understand physiological ecology. This course will address both theoretical and empirical ecology as well as applied ecology with special emphasis on Florida’s ecosystems and human impacts on them. NOTE: Credit is not given for both (PCB 3043C) and (PCB 3043/PCB3043L).

Learning Outcomes and Objectives

  1. The student will demonstrate their knowledge of the history of ecology and practice the techniques used to study ecology by:
    1. tracking the growth and development of ecology as a science and tracing the major contributions in the field.
    2. discussing the division of ecology into many over-lapping sub-disciplines.
    3. applying techniques used to study ecology, including empirical methods, experimental methods, statistical methods and modeling techniques, with special emphasis on some of the constraints and difficulties encountered in ecological research.
    4. analyzing results from experiments and field surveys using a variety of both empirical and theoretical techniques.
  2. The student will discriminate the physical (abiotic) factors within an environment by:
    1. discussing the effect of solar radiation on global climate, regional climates and microclimates.
    2. explaining the physical qualities of light and the effects of light within an environment.
    3. giving examples of temperature variations and their affect within an environment.
    4. listing the physical properties of water and discussing their effect on abiotic environmental factors.
    5. diagraming the water cycle and discussing its effect on the environment.
    6. outlining nutrient cycles, their significance and the influence of the human population on them.
    7. listing the physical and chemical properties of soil, their impact of soil qualities on the environment, factors affecting soil and human influences on soil.
  3. The student will compare organismic ecology, including behavioral and physiological adaptations of plants and animals in response to the physical environment by:
    1. discussing behavioral and physiological adaptations of plants and animals in response to climate variation.
    2. illustrating behavioral and physiological adaptations of plants and animals in response to quantity and quality of light.
    3. explaining behavioral and physiological adaptations of plants and animals in response to temperature variations.
    4. listing and describing the behavioral and physiological adaptations of plants and animals in response to water quantity and quality.
    5. describe or illustrate behavioral and physiological adaptations of plants and animals in response to nutrient quality and quantity.
    6. describe or illustrate the behavioral and physiological adaptations of plants and animals in response to physical and chemical qualities of soil.
    7. measure the results of experiments to define physiological responses to environmental variables.
  4. The student will summarize population ecology, including properties of populations, characteristics of population growth and interactions within a population by:
    1. describing population density and dispersion, age structure, sex ratios, natality and mortality.
    2. describing and illustrating the exponential and logistic growth.
    3. listing the types of factors controlling population growth, including density-dependent and density-independent factors and the evolutionary significance of these factors.
    4. describing cyclic population fluctuations, chaos and extinction.
    5. explaining the effects of intraspecific competition, dispersal mechanisms, reproductive patterns and other social interactions on population regulation and distribution.
    6. performing actual and simulated exercises in population ecology with emphasis on learning sampling techniques for field biology.
  5. The student will summarize the concept of community ecology, including interactions between populations, community structure, community dynamics and control processes and the causes and consequences of spatial patterns of communities by:
    1. describing and graphing the effects and outcomes of interspecific competition on populations, including competitive exclusion, resource partitioning, and niche breadth reduction with examples from laboratory and field studies.
    2. describing models of predation and responses (physiological, behavioral and evolutionary) of predators and prey.
    3. describing parasitism and mutualism and the responses (physiological, behavioral and evolutionary) of parasites, hosts and mutualists.
    4. describing experimentation on the structure of communities, including species richness and diversity, food webs, community classification and the influence of interactions between populations on community structure.
    5. explaining community dynamics, including patterns and mechanisms of succession and community stability.
    6. explaining spatial patterns within communities, such as species-area relationships, island biogeography theory, edge effects, habitat fragmentation, metapopulations and patch dynamics.
    7. performing both simulated and laboratory exercises on population ecology, interactions between populations, community structure and dynamics.
  6. The student will summarize the ecosystem ecology, including ecosystem energetics, nutrient cycling, and comparison of types of biomes by:
    1. explaining the laws of thermodynamics and applying the principles to ecosystems.
    2. describing productivity and its measurement.
    3. illustrating food chains.
    4. describing, measuring and evaluating ecological pyramids and their impact on the ecosystem.
    5. describing the major nutrient cycles, including the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, phosphorous cycle and sulfur cycle
    6. describing the major nutrient cycles, including the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, phosphorous cycle and sulfur cycle
    7. describing, comparing and contrasting the major biomes.
    8. explaining the impact of humans on ecosystem energetics, ecological pyramids, nutrient cycles and major biomes.

Criteria Performance Standard

Upon successful completion of the course, the student will, with a minimum of 75 % accuracy, demonstrate mastery of each of the above stated objectives through classroom measures developed by individual course instructors.

History of Changes

C&I Approval: 05/16/2014, BOT Approval: 10/21/2014, Effective Term: Spring 2015 (495).
C&I Approval: 02/14/2019, BOT Approval: 03/19/2019, Effective Term: Fall 2019 (565)

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