Knowledge
Students will learn important principles of population 
dynamics. They will also be exposed to well-studied 
interspecific interactions, including competition and 
predation. They will learn the key ideas involved in describing 
and explaining robust patterns of biodiversity.

Comprehension
Students will appreciate the mechanisms that lead to changes in
population sizes (for example, density-dependence) through
structured readings, lectures, homework sets, and in-class
computer exercises. They will be able to articulate key steps
required to translate natural processes to mathematical models,
and to characterize population patterns by statistical metrics.
They will reason parsimonious explanations for population and
community-level patterns by invoking mechanisms and
understanding assumptions and predictions of theoretical methods
in ecology.

Application
Students will develop ideas and concepts introduced in lectures
to practical examples through instructional computer lab
sessions. They will be able to modify basic models to add more
realism or to apply it to a different biological problem. They
will work with real world data to provide ecological insight 
(for example, food web structure and geographical variation in 
species richness).

Analysis
Students will learn to break down population and community-level
observations into component processes and will understand how
important concepts in population biology are manifested in real
situations. They will be able to adapt basic computer programs
and to interpret results of population models in a biological
context.

Synthesis
Students will appreciate the progression of ideas that has led 
to the modern field of population and community ecology. They 
will be able to combine component processes, relevant to the 
field, into single models that can explain observed patterns. 
Students will learn the value of considering processes together 
to ask broader questions about the determination of species 
abundances and distributions.

Evaluation
Students will learn the usefulness and assumptions of different
types of approaches to studying population and community 
ecology. They will also be able to critically read and evaluate 
research articles that are published in primary research 
journals. Students will be able to discriminate between good 
and bad models and will be able to discern what type of data 
sets can best be used with models to answer research questions.

Population and community ecology are active fields of research
with important applications for management and conservation. 
This course links conceptual issues and basic models with data 
and field approaches relevant for understanding population 
dynamics in time and space. The first third of the course 
focuses on the birth, death, and movement of organisms, with 
particular reference to the population dynamics of single-
species; the middle third of the course focuses on interactions 
among species, including competition, mutualism, parasitism, 
and predation; the final third of the course focuses on the 
causes and consequences of diversity (the co-occurrence of 
multiple species).