- Course Code
- BI 2001
- Credit Points
- 15
- Course Coordinator
- Dr M D Swaine and Dr M R Young
Pre-requisites
Overview
This course deals with all major aspects of animal and plant community ecology, including: the cycling of matter and energy in ecosystems; decomposition; numerical approaches to community analysis; diversity, succession, stability and chaos; how communities are shaped by competition, predation and herbivory; plant/herbivore interactions; the niche concept and resource partitioning; the dynamics of colonisation and extinction; ecology and evolution of island communities; consequences of animal behaviour, including habitat selection, foraging behaviour and social organisation in birds, ungulates and primates. Lectures will be supported by laboratory and field exercises in techniques for community description and analysis, the measurement of dynamic processes and experimental approaches to understanding community dynamics.
Structure
12 weeks - 3 lectures and 1 laboratory session per week.
To pass this course a pass must be achieved in BOTH the theory exam and the in-course assessment.
Assessment
1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination paper (72%) and in-course assessment of 6 laboratory reports (28%).
Resit:A resit exam, in the same format as the main exam. This may contain material from both the practical and lecture components of the course.