Ecology

Photo: Bumble bee pollinating flower.

Photo: Collecting soil core.

Photo: Juvenile grasshopper.

Ecology is the study of interactions among organisms and between organisms and the environment. It is a broad field that includes many levels of biological organization, from individuals (behavior and physiology) to populations (population dynamics) to communities (collections of species) to ecosystems (communities and their abiotic environment). As such, it incorporates a much wider range of concepts, questions and approaches than other biological disciplines such as cell biology or biochemistry. Ecology provides the conceptual framework for dealing with a wide range of environmental problems facing humanity.

Most students who take this class at UH are juniors or seniors. If you are interested in pursuing a career in ecology or evolutionary biology, however, you should consider taking this course as a sophomore so that you will have time during your undergraduate career to take additional ecology and evolution courses and get exposed to research in an ecology and evolution laboratory.

In addition to lectures, we will discuss papers from the scientific literature, and collect and analyze our own data. Full participation in discussions and projects is expected from everyone in the class, and will count toward your grade.

Course materials will be posted here as they are passed out in class (except for copies of scientific papers, which must be picked up in person).

Ecology syllabus fall 2008.doc

Updated 8/08