Graduate Ecology

Catalog description

Ecology is the study of the distribution and abundance of organisms in the natural world and of the processes that generate these patterns. This course will cover fundamental ecological concepts from a theoretical and empirical perspective, at the level of individuals, populations, communities, ecosystems, and the global environmental. We will study how energy and materials move through ecosystems, succession, interactions among organisms such as parasitism, predation, competition, and mutualism, learn how organisms have adapted to challenges posed by their physical environment and explore how interactions between organisms and their physical environment shape our natural world. Material in the textbook will be extensively supplemented with information from the original literature. Assigned articles will form the basis of in depth, student-led, discussions following lecture. During the semester, schedules permitting, we will attend one or more seminars at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. A term paper is required.