Ecology

Ecology has been defined in many ways. The definition that I prefer is that "ecology is the scientific study of the interactions between organism and their environment." Organisms interact with two distincly different parts of the environment. The "abiotic (non-living) environment" includes all of the non-living attributes of the environment including water, soil characteristics, temperature, etc. The "biotic environment" includes all of the living organisms and involves interactions such as competition, predation, mutualism, etc. Not only is ecology a fascinating topic to study, but a strong understanding of ecology is critical if we expect to understand, and deal with, many environmental issues.

Hierarchical Organization of Ecology

Ecology can be studied at different hierarchical levels.

1. Individuals have phenotypic characteristics such as morphology (e.g., eye color, height, etc.), physiology (blood type, photosynthetic ability, etc.), and behavior (food preferences, response to stimuli, etc.). We can understand the characteristics of organisms by studying how natural selection has affected those traits.

2. A population is a group of individuals of the same species that live in the same area. Individuals in the same population interact via competition and sometimes predation (e.g., canibalism).

Some species live in very large populations whereas others live in very small populations. Ecologists are interested in understanding the factors that influence population size (this is important because when population size equals zero individuals then a population has gone extinct.)

3. A community is a group of different species living together in the same environment. Interspecific interactions including competition, predation, and mutualisms are some of the most interesting, and most important, aspects of ecology. Understanding the factors that influence the biodiversity of communities is an important area of modern ecology.

4. An ecosystem involves all of the biotic components in a community as well as the abiotic components. Unlike the lower levels of the ecological hierarchy where the focus is on living organisms, ecosystem ecologists are interested in understanding the flow of energy and nutrients through the ecosystem. Some of the most important environmental issues facing us today are caused by human alteration of these cycles.

Prerequisite Knowledge For This Course

Because you come from such diverse backgrounds, I don't expect that all of you will have "expert" knowledge in ecology. That's OK, because you have probably picked up a surprising amount of information in your past schooling, reading the media, and watching nature shows on TV. Thus, I will start this course assuming that you have only a basic level of understanding and then build from there.

Ecology Content Resources For This Course

I have been working with middle school and high school teachers for many years in a variety of projects. I have concluded that one of the ways that I can help practicing teachers is to help them become more confident about their mastery of content material. I think that it is always valuable to know more about the material you are teaching than you expect your students to know.

In 2009, as part of the Multidisciplinary Science Masters Degree, I taught a course called "Ecology for Teachers". As part of this course, I developed an "online textbook" called "Ecology Reader- Ecology for Teachers" which is posted on the Encyclopedia of Earth. This reader, and the course blog that I developed for the MSCI course, should serve as valuable content references for this course.

Because the scope of the "Ecology for Teachers" course was broader (it included a discussion of Evolution as well as Ecology) and deeper than required for this course, I will be sure to clearly let you know what content information you are responsible for in this course in the Expected Learning Outcomes for each lesson.

Ecology Reader- http://www.eoearth.org/article/Ecology_Reader-_Ecology_for_Teachers

Ecology for Teachers (2009) blog- http://ecologyforteachers.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html