Course Description
Wildlife science and management is an interdisciplinary applied science including aspects of ecology, geography, and social science involving unique study subjects: wildlife, habitat, and stakeholders. Course will cover the foundation of gaining reliable information and applying it to decision-making using principles of inference, experimental design, sampling, and analysis.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be required to write a critical evaluation of a current approach to the student of wildlife management and how information is currently applied to decisions in that area. Graduate students will also be required to complete all laboratory analyses in Program R, GIS, or other coding or analysis platforms as appropriate. Graduate student work will be evaluated with higher expectations of professionalism and rigor.
Athena Title
Wildlife Science
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in WILD 4700 or WILD 6700
Prerequisite
Permission of major
Corequisite
WILD 4110L/6110L
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
This course will cover the foundation of gaining reliable information regarding each triad aspect using sound principles of inference, experimental design, sampling, and analysis. Students will be exposed to reliable information that can be used to inform wildlife management decisions. Learning Outcomes • Students will critique core concepts and approaches to studying wildlife. • Students will apply critical synthesis of readings to describe problems in wildlife biology and common approaches to study or address them. • Students will practice designing studies including sampling and analyses. • Students will conduct sampling using standard and emerging techniques. • Students will conduct analyses of data in appropriate software including basic coding. • Students will make inferences from data analyses and their understanding of biological and ecological mechanisms and practice, representing those inferences in graphical form. • Students will critically apply inferences and knowledge to management decisions and recommendations.
Topical Outline
Lecture Topics: 1. Inference 2. Uncertainty 3. Integrating science into decision making 4. Experimental design 5. Sampling theory 6. Scientific communication 7. Biometrics 8. Counting what you don’t or can’t see 9. Estimating occupancy and abundance 10. Estimating vital rates 11. Approaches to human dimensions 12. Ethical use of animals and human subjects Lab Topics: 1. Understanding and using field equipment and methods 2. Passive sampling techniques Acoustic sampling to estimate occupancy or abundance Camera traps to estimate occupancy or abundance Molecular approaches to estimate occupancy 3. Active sampling techniques Aging and measuring animals to estimate population age or size structure Capture and tagging to estimate abundance or vital rates Radiotelemetry to estimate home ranges and resource selection Molecular approaches 4. Forensic methods 5. Surveying people
Syllabus
Public CV