Course Description
Explores the fundamental concepts and analytical techniques used in evolutionary ecology. Oriented for the ecology major, this course will provide students with content designed to show how evolutionary concepts may be applied to ecological questions. Theory and applications will be covered, including examples in conservation, phylogenetics, and community ecology.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be expected to do extra weekly readings
that cover specific topics more in-depth (undergraduate readings
will typically be reviews, while graduate students will also be
expected to read a minimum of one empirical paper per week).
Graduate students will also be required to write a term paper
that will be an analysis or re-analysis of published data, using
evolutionary perspectives gained in the course.
Athena Title
Evolutionary Ecology
Prerequisite
ECOL(BIOL) 3500-3500L or ECOL 3505H-3505L or GENE 3000 or permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Give students the necessary background to understand how ecological processes evolve, how evolution is impacted by environmental and ecological change, and how the environment changes in response to evolution. This course is also intended to provide students with an understanding of how the scientific process works, via case studies involving in-depth looks at experiments and field studies illustrating basic principles in evolutionary ecology. Last, the course is intended to provide students with familiarity in the most important parts of evolutionary ecology as a field, most notably with the basic topics in life history evolution and the evolution of biotic interactions, but also including topics at the foreground of thought in the field, such as community evolution.
Topical Outline
Grading: 20% midterm, 20% final, 20% paper, 10% presentation, 10% weekly assignments, 20% participation The schedule below lists the topics proposed to be covered, including the major topics of the Discussion section. Week 1 Topic: Intro & Life Histories: Demography Discussion Topic: Life tables Week 2 Topic: Life Histories: Trade-Offs Discussion Topic: De Jong allocation trees Week 3 Topic: Life Histories: Aging Discussion Topic: Hamiltonian senescence Week 4 Topic: Life Histories: Variable Envts Discussion Topic: Geometric mean fitness Week 5 Topic: Life Histories: Evol Dynamics Discussion Topic: Growth rate metrics Week 6 Topic: Genetics: Pop Gen Models of Evolution Discussion Topic: Pop gen modeling Week 7 Topic: Genetics: Quant Gen Models of Evolution Discussion Topic: Quant gen modeling Week 8 Topic: Genetics: Modern Synthesis & Beyond Discussion Topic: Klausen, Keck, and Hiesey Exam/Assignment: Midterm Week 9 Topic: Biotic Interactions: Intro, Basic Game Theory Discussion Topic: Prisoner's Dilemma Week 10 Topic: Biotic Interactions: Economic Models Discussion Topic: Optimality models Week 11 Topic: Biotic Interactions: Cooperation and Spite Discussion Topic: Inclusive fitness Week 12 Topic: Biotic Interactions: Specialization and Coevolution Discussion Topic: Host breadth comparisons Week 13 Topic: Macroevolution: Phylogenetics Discussion Topic: Ancestral character reconstruction Week 14 Topic: Macroevolution: Geographic Mosaics and Links to Microevolution Discussion Topic: Greya evolution Week 15 Topic: Macroevolution: Evolution in Communities and Ecosystems Discussion Topic: Phylogenetic diversity (PD) & Conservation Exam/Assignment: Class paper and Presentations; Final
Syllabus