BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONALITY
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2015/2016
- Teacher
- MICHELE MISTRI
- Credits
- 6
- Curriculum
- Biologia evoluzionistica e genetica
- Didactic period
- Secondo Semestre
- SSD
- BIO/07
Training objectives
- The course provides students in-depth understanding of theory on multiple species interactions and dynamics including predation, competition, food chain, and food web interactions. The course focuses on how current ecological theory describes the interplay among organisms and their environment and how this knowledge can be applied to analyzing and solving ecological problems such as conservation of ecological communities, sustainable harvesting of populations, and regulation of ecosystem processes. The main emphasis is on the dynamics of consumer-resource interactions and spatial processes and their influence on ecological, as well as evolutionary, processes at the population, community and ecosystem levels. The course consists of lectures, computer exercises, independent projects and literature seminars.
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
The student:
- knows the proper biological and ecological terminology;
- has good knowledge of biological subjects as general biology, zoology, botany;
- has good knowledge of mathematics, physics and chemistry
ABILITY TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
The studenti is able to:
- use the proper biological and ecological terminology;
- to understand and evaluate the impact of structural modifications on biological communities; Prerequisites
- No formal propedeuticity is required, however the student must have good knowledge of biology, with properties of language and scientific mastery.
Course programme
- COURSE PROGRAM
IN THE FIRST PART (22 hours), after an introduction to general ecology, the student will be guided through argument dealing with Biodiversity: Reasons to conserve species diversity. Diversity and ecosystem services. Role of Humans. Community level of ecological organization. Species abundance: latitude and altitude. Species diversity and its measurement. Island biogeography. Latitudinal gradient hypothesis. Disturbance and diversity. Different concepts of the community.
in the SECOND PART (22 hours) the student will be guided through the relationships among species in the community: Competition. Density regulation of natural populations. Interference and exploitation competition. Interspecific competition. Why does competition occur? Tilman's resource-based competition model. Competition and niches. Characters displacement. Competition and conservation. A special case of competition: predation. Dynamics of predation. Avoiding predators. Keystone species.
In the THIRD PART OF THE COURSE (20 hours), the student will be guided through Ecosystem energetics:
Primary production. Trophic dynamics. Energy flows in ecosystems. Didactic methods
- The course consists of theory lessons for a total of 48 hours of teaching (6 credits). Lessons are held weekly in the classroom and the exposure is done through the use of power-point slides.
Learning assessment procedures
- The goal of the final test is to verify the level of knowledge of the student. The evaluation is expressed as usual (/30), the minimum grade is 18. The exam is oral.
Reference texts
- Lecture notes
